


Go back to your childhood

by dip_dopp



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Catra Origin Story, F/F, F/M, Minor Character Death, Origin Story, Post-Canon, but that's nothing new, glimbow if you squint, i'll update the tags as I update the chapters, just like monumental amounts of angst for Catra, no beta we die like men, rating is also just for language, shadow weaver deserves her own warning, violence warning is for future chapters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-11-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 63,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26506543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dip_dopp/pseuds/dip_dopp
Summary: "What did you find that was so important?""I think I found where you were taken from."--In other words: I really wanted to explore some ideas I had about where Catra came from so here, have this: another Catra origin story
Relationships: Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra)
Comments: 121
Kudos: 415





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's about the soft touches with these two.

Catra awoke to the sound of gentle chirping coming from the balcony outside. Slowly, and before opening her eyes, she began to notice things around her. The first thing she noticed was the soft snores that were echoing above her head. If she had woken up before Adora, she thought lazily, it must be incredibly early. The second thing she noticed was the arm wrapped around her shoulders, pulling her closer to the warm body next to her. Lastly, she noticed the first rays of light shining through the large windows of the room and  _ directly into her face _ . 

She groaned, and with great effort, threw her arm over her eyes and turned further in towards the promise of darkness that lingered in the crook of her partner's neck. She knew by the sun alone that she would have to rise soon anyways to attend meetings for the majority of the day with Glimmer as her  _ most trusted royal advisor.  _ She spared herself a small chuckle at the title Glimmer had bestowed upon her a couple months ago. 

"Given your expertise in military and government command and your recent shift in alignment, I find it only reasonable to offer you this position, Catra." Glimmer had said, quite formally for having told her while she lay sprawled across Adora's lap, reading a book in the gardens. 

Catra had a feeling it had more to do with her then recent complaints that she was running out of things to do in the reconstruction efforts happening all around Etheria. Then, nearly a year and a half after the war, she had helped as much as she could to repair the damage she had done to the planet and oftentimes gave Adora a run for her money with how she ran herself into the ground trying to fix her mistakes. She was getting better at knowing when to take breaks so she didn't collapse the same way she had one day in the Fright Zone because as Mermista would tell her: "You're no good to anyone if you're dead." Nevertheless, she had accepted the position, albeit with some reluctance simply as a result of her image around the world, which led her to today.

She let out a small sigh into Adora's neck, realizing she was not going to be able to fall back asleep, and turned to grab the tracker pad that lay on the bedside table. 

_ 5:14 am _ .

If looks could kill, the tracker pad would have broken in half as Catra fixed it with a glare as though it had been the reason for her waking. She still had 45 minutes before she needed to be anywhere and it would only take her a few brief minutes to stroll to the old war room where a meeting with various delegations and kingdoms was soon to be held. She decided she could spare some extra time to return to the embrace of her lover before she had to face the world. 

Catra set the tracker pad back down on the table, calmly so as not to actually break it, and turned back towards Adora. She settled back into her spot for a few seconds before she noticed her partner start to shift. Catra mentally cursed herself for moving before it was absolutely necessary and rousing Adora before she realized that Adora had not actually woken up. She moved farther back in the embrace to observe Adora's behavior before having to quickly dodge an elbow that was thrown her way. 

Adora was sleep fighting again.

Catra groaned as she finally fully pushed her body upright and captured the swinging fists, pinning them to the bed. Even in her sleep, Adora put up one hell of a fight as she continued to thrash underneath Catra. 

"Adora. Adora! Wake up!" Catra half whispered harshly, truly not in the mood to get sucker punched in the face this early in the morning. The girl underneath her continued grunting and attempting to free her hands from the restraints now placed upon them before harshly sucking in a gasp of air and opening her eyes. 

Adora's face shifted quickly from surprise to confusion to worry as she registered Catra's position on top of her. "Catra? What- what's wrong? What happened?" she asked as she glanced up at her girlfriend's slightly annoyed face.

"What happened is you almost elbowed me halfway to Salineas, Princess." Catra replied, sitting back and releasing her grip on Adora's wrists. 

Adora at least had the decency to look a little embarrassed as she said, "Oh, sorry. Are you okay? I didn't actually hit you did I?" now looking more concerned than before as Catra watched her eyes scan her for any sign of injury.

"I'm fine, Adora. You'll have to be faster than that if you wanna actually land a hit on me." Catra said smugly as she crawled out of bed and towards the closet that held their clothes.

She heard Adora groan behind her as she realized why Catra was up so early. 

"You have meetings all day, don't you?" she asked as Catra pulled clothes from the hangers. 

"Only up until lunch, and there's nothing we can do about it so you're going to have to find something to do without me today." she replied and she sauntered back towards the bed, arms holding her clothes for the day against her hips as if they were a child, to sit next to Adora and lean down to press a gentle kiss to her forehead.

"I'm beginning to regret suggesting to Glimmer that you should be a royal advisor." Adora said with a pout. 

Catra chuckled to herself as she set to stroking lightly through Adora's tangled hair before standing and walking towards their bathroom while calling, "Sorry that some of us have to be responsible before 6 in the morning!"

-

By the time that Catra exited the bathroom, fully dressed for a day full of meeting with royalty, she saw that Melog had stolen her spot next to Adora and was quickly stealing the heat left behind by her body in an attempt to curl up as close as possible to the girl remaining on the bed. She quietly walked back towards the bed so as not to disturb the pair and grabbed the tracker pad once more.

_ 5:47 am _ it glared back at her. A single message appeared on the screen from Glimmer.

_ ‘Food in the war room. Delegation from Far Water arrived early. Keep the 6am start.’ _

With a huff, she placed it into the bag placed at the foot of the bed with other various documents. Glimmer never was the most eloquent when texting; she must have been rushed. She slung the strap over her shoulder, deeming herself ready to leave for the day. Catra rounded the bed to face Adora, where the latter had turned away from Melog and towards the wall, and crouched in front of her face.

“I’m leaving. See you at lunch.” she whispered, kissing Adora’s forehead again.

Still half asleep, Adora mumbled, “You’re not going to breakfast? You okay? Are you feeling sick?” 

Unfazed by her worry, Catra responded, “Sparkles already got me something, someone decided to show up early so she’s up already taking care of them.” She began to run her hands through Adora’s hair, “Tragically, I don’t have time today to make sure you don’t eat half the cafeteria.” 

Adora chuckled and reached her hand up to grasp Catra’s and brought it to her mouth to press a short kiss to her knuckles. “I promise I won’t.” she murmured, stroking Catra’s knuckles lightly. Catra gave her partner a soft smile and rose from her squat to walk towards the door. 

If not for her advanced hearing, she would not have caught the soft “Love you” Adora threw her way before settling back into the bed to return to sleep.

“I love you too, dork.” Catra chuckled as she slipped out the door towards the war room, making a mental note to thank Melog later for staying with Adora. 

-

Several hours passed before Catra and Glimmer were able to actually take a proper breather from their meetings that didn’t include the passing time it took to move from room to room to grab documents or greet new officials. 

“Why did you let me schedule 8 different visits from delegates all on the same day?” Glimmer called from her seat at the head of the now empty table that a very exasperated official from Thaymor had just vacated.

From her own spot atop a window frame overlooking the gardens, Catra didn't even glance back at the queen as she said, “What was it that I said?  _ ‘Hey Glimmer you’re going to hate it if you schedule more than 4 groups at a time, and we’ll be busy the whole day if you don’t rearrange that schedule right now.’  _ or was it more like- ”

“Okay! Okay I get it, geez.” Glimmer dropped her head onto the pile of papers in front of her unceremoniously as she mumbled, “I hate when you’re right. Next time I try to do that just knock me upside the head and maybe I’ll remember how much this sucks.” 

Catra chuckled. “I’m pretty sure I could go to jail for that. Although, you guys have a past of being pretty forgiving, so maybe I can get away with it.” She briefly reminisced about her time coming to Bright Moon right after the war and how they explained that their justice system was reconstructive and reformative rather than punitive and how people who had shown willingness to change from the side of evil would be granted second chances so long as they put efforts towards undoing the damage done to the world around them. Initially, Catra had been surprised. Punitive punishment had been very common in her childhood, sometimes being locked in solitary confinement by Shadow Weaver for long stretches of time as a response to something else she thought that Catra had done. She had mostly expected them to throw her in a cell at their earliest convenience, although looking back they likely would have gotten a little more than an earful from Adora had they tried that. 

“Oh, we could never throw you in jail, Catra. We don’t even have a jail, and no one wants to be the one to tell She-Ra that her girlfriend got put in a cell.” Glimmer laughed as her head finally rose from the pile of papers in front of her. The queen sighed as she moved the papers from the table into her own bag before replacing them with another stack. 

“At least the last meeting is with Scorpia and not some self righteous delegate from Gods know where.” Glimmer rambled as she set to preparing her materials for the next meeting. Catra eyed the clock hanging on the wall next to her and found that they had about five minutes before Scorpia was set to arrive. The meeting wouldn’t be long, mostly designed to give updates about how the reconstruction of the Scorpioni kingdom was going with some extra allotted time to simply catch up with a friend they had not seen in a month or so before lunch. 

Catra jumped down from her perch and walked back to her seat next to Glimmer, hoping to stay out of the way of a stray paper or folder that would inevitably go flying. There was a tentative knock at the door before it cracked open so the girls could see Scorpia’s head poking in through the door, as if uncertain she was in the right room.

Of all the relationships Catra had needed to repair after the war, her relationship with Scorpia was one of the most important to her - next to Adora of course, but that was much more easily accomplished. Scorpia had pretty much forgiven her right off the bat after the end of the war, although Catra could tell it seemed like she was waiting for the other shoe to drop for quite a while. Catra had tried her best to make it all up to her friend by doing as much as she could to tear down the old Fright Zone and rebuild the Scorpioni kingdom to its former glory, and after all her time spent around Scorpia after the war, they finally developed a more understanding friendship based on mutual trust and acceptance of boundaries rather than out of spite and one-sided feelings. 

Finally seeing Catra and Glimmer inside the room, Scorpia pulled the door fully open in excitement. “Oh, hey guys! Wow, it’s been so long! I feel like I haven’t seen you in years!” she exclaimed, scooping the other two women into her arms in an embrace with strength that seemed to rival She-Ra herself.

“It’s been a month, Scorp.” Catra laughed, patting her on the back as Scorpia set them down. 

“I know, I know, I just-” Scorpia brought her pincers up to her face. “I missed you guys so much!”

They took their seats at the table and spent the better half of their meeting just talking with Scorpia about any topic that came to mind before it came time for lunch. As much as Catra loved Scorpia, she had been itching to get to lunch all day after spending nearly 7 hours straight away from Adora. She was about to follow Glimmer out of the war room before she felt Scorpia’s pincer on her shoulder. As she turned around, she expected to see Scorpia’s face lit up with excitement over the prospect of food, but she was met with a far more serious expression when she realized Scorpia was making the face that read  _ ‘I have something I need to say, and I’m not sure you’re going to enjoy it.’ _ The trio paused, Glimmer just outside the door to the war room and Catra and Scorpia remaining inside.

“Catra, can I talk to you about something?” Scorpia asked, seeming far more nervous about the response she was going to get than Catra had seen her in years.

“Yeah, of course. You know you can always tell me anything, Scorpia.” Catra responded, putting a comforting hand on the pincer that still laid on her shoulder. She threw a glance at Glimmer, letting her know it was okay to go ahead without them. Glimmer shrugged and continued her walk towards the cafeteria as Catra fully turned back to Scorpia, hoping that some of her nerves might be eased.

“What’s up?” Catra said, now realizing that Scorpia’s nerves had done anything but ease. In fact she looked more nervous than before, as if sensing that there was no way to avoid the conversation any longer.

“Um well, you see, I was going through some old logs a couple of days ago- and really they’re nothing to worry about! But they seemed kind of important so I set them aside to read later- and I did, I read them and-” 

“Scorpia,” Catra interrupted her rambling, knowing that she would never get to the point if allowed to continue. “What did you find that was important?”

“I think I found where you were taken from.” Scorpia stated simply, screwing her eyes shut and seeming to brace herself for a blow that wouldn’t come. She slowly peeked her eyes open to see Catra, not having moved, frozen in place and looking up at her friend’s face, mouth slightly agape. It took a few seconds for Catra to recover enough to shake her head incredulously in disbelief.

“Scorpia, that’s impossible. She always said I was dropped off in a box on the Horde’s doorstep, there’s no way- I can’t- I don’t-” she was stopped in her own ramblings by Scorpia’s pincer once again on her shoulder. “I don’t have a family.” she finally said, looking down at her hands, still in disbelief.

“We found some records about a battle for a kingdom called Halfmoon. They said that it was the home to a group of people called magicats,” Scorpia said sadly, handing Catra the file she had been holding, “it said that the only person they managed to capture from their capital city was a baby. Everyone else either escaped or..” she trailed off. 

Catra took the file gently, as if it held the answers to the meaning of life and the existence of the universe itself. It was nothing spectacular for all the importance it now held. A simple gray file folder, not unlike the ones Catra once had Scorpia handling back in her days as Hordak’s second in command, with a faded red Horde symbol emblazoned across the front of it. She ran her fingers over the worn edges, this folder had clearly been shoved to the back of some cabinet in the Fright Zone so long ago that its existence was likely forgotten about until the moment Scorpia recovered it. She moved her hand to the edge of the folder that would allow her to open it and paused. 

Catra was silent for a long couple of minutes before she clutched the file to her chest and finally looked up at her friend. Scorpia, for all her patience, still looked incredibly nervous about how Catra would react and for the most part hid her surprise when Catra simply said, “Thank you.” and tucked the file into her bag. 

“You’re- you’re not upset? Or surprised even?” Scorpia asked, finally releasing the tension she had been holding. 

“I’m not- upset per se. I guess confused? Conflicted might be a better word.” Catra responded looking wistful. In reality, Catra wanted to run and hide in the highest corner of Bright Moon where she knew no one but Adora would find her and no one but Glimmer could reach thanks to her penchant for teleporting. This was a habit she had long since worked on, and while she still had her moments where she ran off, she never left without telling someone, usually Adora, where she was going and how long she might be gone. They had agreed to this after one particularly nasty instance of Catra getting spooked by some demon from the past and taking off towards the woods without notice and not returning for several days. 

Catra debated her options. She could take off, leave Scorpia behind without explanation, and find a perch to collect her thoughts in, but she wouldn’t do that because it would only serve to worry everyone around her and it wouldn’t help to balance her thoughts if she was alone. She could head back towards the room she and Adora shared and curl up on the bed until Adora finally found her, but she had told Adora she would meet her at lunch and if she ditched, Adora would only get worried. She could meet Adora for lunch and ask to sit away from the bustling crowds of the cafeteria so she could have help processing the new information and make a plan for going forward. Sighing, she considered this to be her best option.

“Let’s just- get lunch, alright?” Catra asked, looking up at Scorpia, hoping that the look in her eyes conveyed her need for an out in that moment.

“Oh! Yeah! Of course!” Scorpia said, seemingly delighted that Catra hadn’t taken the opportunity to lash out or run away, despite them both knowing that the likelihood of that actually happening was very low. 

Old habits die hard. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the support on the first chapter!  
> I made a tiny edit to the first chapter because I realized it contradicted something I said in this chapter. (Just a mention of Shadow Weaver)

They walked in what would have been a comfortable silence if not for Catra’s mind going entirely haywire in the moment. Before she knew it, they had arrived at the cafeteria and were being waved over by their friends who were all already sitting together. As if on instinct, Catra sought out Adora immediately, sitting next to her without even considering obtaining food beforehand. As she slid into her seat to the right of Adora, she noticed a plate being put in front of her. With a soft smile, Adora set down a plate filled with various kinds of food ranging from fruit, to the sweet buns they had had during their space voyages, and a small stack of fish. Catra accepted the plate, despite no longer feeling all that hungry, and set to picking apart her food.

Without saying anything, because she knew Catra didn’t like when she drew a lot of public attention to her shift in moods, Adora placed her hand gently on the small of Catra’s back and gave her a small quirk of her eyebrow to ask  _ ‘What’s wrong?’  _ Catra simply shook her head and wrapped her tail around Adora’s waist.

Leaning in towards Adora, Catra leaned up closer to her ear and whispered, “Do you mind if we eat outside today?” Adora fixed Catra with a concerned glance before turning back towards Glimmer, Bow, and Scorpia and saying, “Hey, Catra and I are gonna take our food outside today. Alright?” as she started to stand. 

“Oh that’s a great idea!” Bow began before Catra threw him a soft glare. 

“Or actually, I think we’ll stay here closer to the food for, um, seconds.” He said settling back into his spot which already had 3 different plates littered in front of it. 

Adora shot him a thankful look before grabbing her own plate and Catra’s hand to lead them towards the exit. As they walked through the halls of Brightmoon, Catra started to realize that Adora was leading them towards the gardens in front of the castle. 

They approached the giant tree that laid at the center of the gardens and took a seat beneath it. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Adora asked once they had resumed their positions, Adora’s arms wrapped around Catra’s waist protectively and Catra leaned in towards Adora’s neck, her plate abandoned in front of her. Catra let out a deep sigh and steeled herself for the conversation she was about to have, the details of which were hardly any more clear to her than her partner. She pulled the worn file from her bag and laid it face up on her lap. She heard Adora’s breath hitch briefly as she recognized the Horde symbol on the front before asking, “What’s this?”

“ _ This _ is a file that Scorpia found about a battle for a kingdom called Halfmoon.” she paused in an attempt to quell her rapidly beating heart from spiralling out of control. She felt Adora’s hand rub small soothing circles into her shoulder as she took some deeper breaths. 

“Supposedly Halfmoon was home to a group called Magicats.” Adora’s hand stilled. “Scorpia thinks I might have been taken from their capital city... The only person that they logged as captured was a baby..” It wasn’t until she felt strong arms wrap around her shoulders that she realized she was shaking. Tears fell onto the old file in front of her and Catra gently put it to the side to latch onto Adora’s arms. 

They stayed there for a couple minutes, Catra trying to quiet her sobs so as not to alert passersby to the situation and Adora holding her nearly as tightly as her strength would allow her to. After some time, Catra’s tears stopped and she lay, tired, in Adora’s arms. 

She knew Adora would give her time to collect her thoughts and would not prompt her to talk until Catra spoke first. It was a tactic long ago discovered and used since they were children when Catra would run and hide in any forgotten corner of the Fright Zone she could find, and it had worked up until this day with very few changes.

“I’m not sure what to do with it.” Catra said, breaking her silence and allowing Adora to ask, “Have you opened it yet?”

“Not yet. Scorpia gave it to me right before we left for lunch, and I didn’t want to just run off and deal with it by myself.” Catra replied as she moved her hands from Adora’s arms to her waist so she could be closer to the comfort she sought. Lodging her face in Adora’s neck she mumbled, “I mean, what even am I supposed to do with this? How do I deal with this after I find out it’s entirely possible that I wasn’t just dropped off in a box like she always said?” Catra asked, exasperated but still unwilling to say Shadow Weaver’s name out loud as though the mention of her might bring her back from the dead. 

Leaning quickly out of the embrace and running her hands through her hair Catra continued, “What if I  _ was _ taken? What if I did have a family? And- and if I did, what happened to them? Are they dead? Did they leave me behind? What if-” She was interrupted by Adora gently grabbing her wrists and pulling them away from her scalp. In all her panic, she hadn’t realized that her claws had extended and had begun scratching farther and farther into her head. All pretense of tension that she had held moments ago dropped quickly out of her body as she slumped back into Adora’s shoulder and allowed herself to be held.

“What if this is real?” she asked weakly. Slowly, Adora pulled far enough back from their embrace to rest her forehead against her partner’s. 

“Then we deal with it together. You don’t have to do this alone, Catra.” Adora said, moving a hand to cup Catra’s cheek gently and wipe away the remaining tears. “You have me; you’ll always have me. I know Glimmer and Bow would be more than willing to help however they can, and we can figure it out together.” 

Catra released an unsteady breath as she glared at the thick file lying on the ground. For all that the Fright Zone was a disorganized mess, some of their records - particularly those regarding conquests and resource attainment - were well kept, although Catra believed this may have just been because of the nature of the people keeping the files rather than any actual orders from Hordak himself. 

With shaking hands, she picked up the file once more and set it in her lap. Her hands once again found the edge of the folder and hovered there for a moment.

“It doesn’t have to be now if you’re not ready, you know?” Adora said, noticing her hesitation. She took a hold of her hand and placed a kiss on her knuckles before settling their hands back down on her lap. “There’s no rush on these things, you can take your time.”

Catra thought about it for a moment, once again considering her options. She could wait to open the file and let the curiosity and anxiety grow inside of her until she reached a breaking point, or she could open it sooner rather than later and deal with the consequences - whether good or bad - immediately. 

“No. I should do this now. If I don’t, I’m just delaying the inevitable.” she sighed looking up at Adora. “Help me go through it?” she asked, eyes softly pleading.

“Of course.” Adora said, maintaining her grip on Catra’s hand.

Slowly, and without fanfare, Catra reached to open the file. On top of the thick stack of papers was a log; it seemed to relay the various resources taken from the city after it had been conquered. It detailed the food, building materials, tech, and other miscellaneous supplies that were quantified after the fact. Catra allowed herself a small smile at the fold of the paper in the corner where she could tell Scorpia had flipped through it previously. She continued to flip through the pages that detailed casualties, albeit only from the Horde’s side which seemed to be remarkably higher than the usual count if Catra could recall anything about the normalcy of the old Horde files she once read through and wrote. She passed general reports from the present Force Captains at the time before landing on a specific report. 

_ General Battle Report: Shadow Weaver _ was scrawled at the top of the page in sharp handwriting.

Catra paused her flipping and stared at the words on the page.  _ Of course she was involved _ , Catra thought bitterly.  _ Because why wouldn’t she have started tormenting me as early as possible? _ Adora paused her own skimming through the half that had been given to her when she noticed Catra had stopped moving. Gently, she moved to look at the page that had captured Catra’s attention before pausing herself. She quickly scanned the page taking in information about battle strategies used, what resources taken were of most value, and other general notes until one note caught her eye.

_ No citizens captured with the exception of one child, no older than 2. (see cadet file 1547) All other citizens remaining on scene pronounced dead. A large part of the citizenship fled soon after battle began.  _

Adora looked back up to Catra’s face where she expected to see some mixture of grief and sadness. Instead, Catra’s face held a combination of barely restrained anger and confusion. 

“Catra?” Adora asked tentatively, unsure how Catra would react to reading this information.

Catra let out a bitter laugh. “Of course she was there! Of course she would  _ lie _ to me that I was abandoned and leave this out of my cadet file. Of course she stole me!” Tears began flowing down Catra’s cheeks now, unrestrained. 

Adora gently grabbed the paper from Catra’s pile and reexamined it. “Who’s Cadet 1547?” she asked. 

“It’s me.” Catra said, voice rough from the exertion of crying. “Once I replaced her I got access to all of her files, including the ones involving cadets. You’re Cadet 1265.” She ran her hands across her cheeks in a futile attempt to dry her tears, but it only served to dampen the rest of the light fur on her face. 

“Goddamnit.” she swore under her breath as her hands returned to the papers.

“Do you want to take a break?” Adora asked, moving to hold Catra’s shoulders again in an effort to comfort her tearful girlfriend. As soon as her hand made contact with her shoulder, Adora could feel a small bit of tension leave Catra’s body which, all in all, was better than nothing.

“No, let’s just get this over with.” Catra sighed, setting Shadow Weaver’s report to the side for future reference. 

“Alright, but you’ll let me know if you need to stop?” Adora asked, trying to make sure that Catra knew she was offering a way out. “Yeah, of course.” Catra responded without looking up from her stack. Adora kept her arm around her girlfriend as she continued to turn through the pages.

They spent a couple hours sitting on the grounds of the garden under that tree just turning through battle reports for anything that may have stuck out as important regarding Catra’s past, but aside from the mention in Shadow Weaver’s report, they were having trouble spotting anything else of importance. 

Catra rubbed her temples as if it might help alleviate the growing headache that was settling right behind her eyes as she came to the end of her pile. Adora had since finished with most of her stack as well and was fixing to read her last paper. Catra glanced back down at her final paper, saw that it was yet another log of materials and set it aside with a heavy sigh. She took up residence on Adora’s shoulder as she skimmed across a battle report from another Force Captain.

“Adora, this is pointless. The only thing it’s given me so far is a headache and more questions than I know what to do with. I think we should just give-” she was stopped by Adora putting a single finger up, asking her to pause. 

With a hint of annoyance she continued, “Adora, are you even listening to me?” before leaning over to read what had her partner so captivated. At the top of the page in a loopy scrawl was  _ General Battle Report: Force Captain Cerata. _

“What’s so important about-” Catra started only to be interrupted by Adora reading aloud from the page.

“All citizens remaining on scene were dispatched prior to the end of battle with the exception of one child. Although not commonly allowed, I was permitted to return this infant to the Fright Zone as her only known remaining family (count: one older sister) had already passed as opposed to leaving her behind in the city alone.” Adora stopped as she reached the end of the paragraph, after which it continued to talk about other measures taken to secure the city. 

“Catra, you have a sister!” Adora exclaimed, strangely happy for having learned this at the same time as learning about her death.

“ _ Had _ a sister, Adora. It said she died.” Catra said, shakily taking the paper from her hands to scan it again, looking for any additional information. 

“Catra, this could be good! It’s a lead at the very least.” Adora tried to reassure, not sure if it was more for Catra or the both of them. 

“Hardly! They couldn’t be more vague if they tried, Adora. So I  _ had _ a sister. They said she was the only known remaining family so what happened to my parents? Was she taking care of me? How old was she? Hell,  _ who _ was she?” Catra exclaimed exasperated, quickly losing patience with the paper that withheld the desired information from her. 

“Catra, take a breath.” Adora said resting her hands on Catra’s shoulders and taking in deep breaths for Catra to mimic. Catra copied Adora’s breathing for a few moments before loosening her grip on the paper. 

“It’s nothing we can’t figure out in time, love. We have two things to go on: you’re from Halfmoon and you had a sister. That’s more information than we had yesterday; isn’t that a good thing?” Adora asked, trying to find a light in the darkness shrouding Catra’s past and the vague words of the battle reports.

Catra raised a hand to rest on Adora’s and said, “I guess- I don’t know, Adora. What if it isn’t a good thing? What if we get to the city and we just find out that my family was bad people? Worse, what if we can’t even find the city because it got leveled after the Horde invaded? What if-”

“Catra,” Adora interrupted once more, “you’re catastrophizing. What if we  _ are  _ able to find the city? What if we  _ can  _ find some trace of your people? Of your family?” Adora paused to gauge Catra’s reaction. When Catra made no move to speak or respond in any way, Adora continued, “Catra, if you really don’t want to pursue this, I won’t make you, but I can tell it’s going to bother you for a while without all the answers you want. If you do want to find more, I’ll be with you every step of the way, no matter what.” 

Catra sighed, “I know you will be, Adora, and I appreciate that. But” she glanced at the papers strewn about the ground, “what if this is just another dead end?” Catra looked up, eyes brimming with tears once again threatening to spill over, and into Adora’s eyes. With a look that spoke only of hope and compassion, Adora leaned forward to brush the hair out of Catra’s eyes and press a kiss to her forehead. 

“Then we keep on living. Nothing has to change if you don’t want it to. No matter what we find out, no matter where you actually come from, your family is here. If you’ll have them, that is.” Adora replied with a soft smile moving her arms to hug Catra’s body close to her while glancing behind them where three figures slowly approached. 

Catra let out a small chuckle at Adora’s words. She knew reasonably now that the family that she had gathered over the years, made up of ragtag ex-Horde cadets, princesses, and alien cats, would always be there for no matter what, but some part of her still longed for the family she never got the chance to know. She knew that no matter what they found, Catra would never leave them behind.

“I know.” Catra said, ears flicking back to notice the footsteps approaching them. She quickly ran her hands over her face again to push away any tears that still lingered in her eyes before turning to the friends who now stood behind them. Now, 2 years after the war, she was no longer afraid of showing some weakness in front of her friends, but it wasn’t necessarily an easy situation to explain so Catra opted to try and make herself look at least somewhat presentable.

“Oh hey, you got to read through the file! What did you-” Scorpia started before Catra turned to face her, eyes still bloodshot from having just cried. “Oh no! Wildcat, I thought this might make you upset, but I didn’t want to make you cry! Oh no, I’m a terrible friend!” Scorpia began to ramble as she crouched in front of Catra, trying to avoid the messy stacks of paper strewn about.

“Hey Scorpia, it’s okay really.” Catra started, she tried her best to put on a comforting smile though she could tell her lip had quivered slightly at the attempt to talk. “I needed to find out eventually, anyways.” 

“Uh guys? What’s going on? What are all these papers?” Bow began before spotting the Horde emblem on the file folder. “Are these Horde files?”

Adora looked up at Bow and Glimmer’s questioning faces and then back down at Catra, non verbally asking for permission to tell them about the contents of the files and the events of the day. Catra gave a short nod before resting her head back against Adora’s collarbone.

“It’s a file about a kingdom the Horde conquered; it was called Halfmoon.” Adora began.

“Oh yeah I know about that one.” Bow started, “My dads have a couple books about them, but I guess they were super reclusive so not much was known. Didn’t the Magicats- Oh. OH.” He stopped and observed Catra’s position; even from where she sat, face pressed against Adora, he could tell she had spent the better part of the last couple hours crying.

“What? What am I missing?” Glimmer asked, looking around at her friends who all seemed to have a better grasp on the situation than she did.

Catra rose her head from its spot and looked at Glimmer. “Apparently, I’m from Halfmoon. I was stolen from there when the Horde invaded, and I was the only one taken. Everyone else either fled or died.” She let out a dry chuckle and eyed the two battle reports which spoke of her. “You know the Horde, take no prisoners except children you can raise into mindless soldiers.” she said bitterly, opting to return to her silence.

The group remained quiet as Adora handed them the two battle reports and watched as they grimaced at the name of the person who had written the first. Scorpia eyed the second report.

“Wait, Force Captain Cerata? That’s my mom.” Scorpia said with a hint of surprise. At the statement, Catra raised her head to look questioningly at her friend. 

“Oh geez, I knew she never liked it when kids got caught in the middle of the war, but I was too young to remember her actually participating in any battles. All I remember is that she quit going into the field after a really rough one.” 

“Which one?” Glimmer asked, idly, as she continued to scan Shadow Weaver’s report.

Scorpia looked at her mother’s report again. “Well judging by the date, it was probably this one, or at least it was close to it. I would have been about five when this battle happened; that's around the time she stopped going out into the field.”

Adora was the first to speak. “Scorpia, I think your mom might have saved Catra’s life.” she said in a slightly sad tone. “The report said she wasn’t usually allowed to bring in children off the battlefield but that an exception was made this one time. They would have left her alone in the city otherwise.” Scorpia looked at the paper in her pincers like it had hung the stars in the sky and muttered a soft, “Wow.”

“Guess I owe your mom one, huh?” Catra chuckled lightly, tears still threatening to spill forth. She sat up from Adora’s embrace, arms still hanging loosely around her, still not entirely confident she was done crying over this but unwilling to remain slumped over any longer. 

“Oh Catra, I’m sure that even if you did you already made it up to her just by being my friend.” Scorpia said with stars in her eyes, now looking up at Catra in joy and like she was ready to jump at the chance to hug her any second. Knowing that she wouldn’t without her own consent, Catra huffed a small laugh and held her arms out towards Scorpia weakly, bracing herself to be scooped upwards. Scorpia let out a high pitched squeal and rushed forward to hug Catra but allowed her to remain in her place on the ground. 

Catra could tell Scorpia was trying not to startle her by lifting her from the ground and silently thanked her as she said “I’m so glad you’re here, Wildcat.” into the fluff of Catra’s hair. She simply smiled and put her arms around Scorpia’s neck, allowing herself to be held. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is going to be a little bit shorter than these last two, but I won't post it until I have the 4th chapter done. Thank you again for all the nice comments! They're what's motivating me to keep writing this lol


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the nice comments, I appreciate them so much!! I have the next chapter finished and I'll post it soon :)

They had set up shop in one of Bright Moon’s various empty rooms which would now house all the information that had been able to collect about Halfmoon’s citizens and Catra’s family. Catra had made it a point to not allow the various papers to be strung up in the room that she and Adora shared for fear that it would begin to consume every part of her life and leave her without a place to escape to. 

Adora had taken it upon herself to drag out the large bulletin board which once housed her plans for Princess Prom and various other battles, subsequently. They began to sort through the file once more to find anything that seemed to be of great importance and carefully pinned the old papers to the board. By the end of the file, the group had posted both of the general battle reports that mentioned Catra, a report of the general landscape surrounding the kingdom, and a small undetailed map of the capital city. At some point, Bow had stepped out of the room to contact his dads to see if he could stop by and pick up any books regarding Magicats and the kingdom of Halfmoon. 

Catra spared a glance at the simple map that was pinned to the board and idly wondered where her family’s house would have been. Perhaps up close to what appeared to be a castle towards the center of the city. Maybe even at the farthest rings of the city where it seemed to be populated by a craftsman’s quarter. Hell, maybe they didn’t even come from that city at all and they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time! Catra let out a sigh and leaned farther back into Melog who had set up behind her when she had sat down on the floor in an attempt to quell her growing nerves. 

Bow stepped back into the room, “Okay, so, my dads said that they have a few volumes of encyclopedias that talk about the Magicats, but they did say that it won’t be very comprehensive since, again, they were pretty reclusive. They didn’t seem to even trade much with neighboring kingdoms since they were fairly hidden away and hard to access.” he said, looking up from his tracker pad. 

Catra groaned, “Ugh, of course they would be hard to find. If they were hard to find when they were alive, what are the odds we’re gonna be able to find them now that half of them are dead?” she asked, throwing her hands in the air. “Hell, who even knows if they are still alive? The reports said that people fled but maybe they didn’t even get that far!”

She was stopped by a gentle hand on her shoulder. Adora looked at her from where she had crouched in front Catra. “Catra, it’ll be okay. We already have some landscape to go off of and that should help us find something at least. With any luck, maybe it’s already close to something else we know!” Catra looked from Adora’s hand to her face and found a look full of love, hope, and determination shining back at her. 

“Okay! Let’s find a map!” Glimmer said, clapping her hands together before disappearing in a shower of sparkles. She was back not even 10 seconds later, lugging behind her a large paper map on a stand that she set next to the bulletin board. 

“The whole shifting landscape thing might make this a little difficult if the kingdom ends up being in the Whispering Woods, but the Woods tend to be pretty forgiving of settlements that pop up in them and they keep the territory fairly unchanging for the residents.” Glimmer says as Adora began copying down the map from the file to the scale of the map that Glimmer had brought in.

In their time after the war, Adora had struggled with finding a new purpose since it had seemed like She-Ra was no longer needed planetside as reconstruction efforts moved towards final details and the finer work that an 8 foot warrior was not necessarily the best suited for. Getting into cartography had seemed to be the perfect distraction until they began their journey into space as it allowed Adora to put her meticulous detail skills to work while also allowing her to map the stars they would soon be heading out into. _This will probably delay the trip even more_ Catra thought to herself. They had known that their journey into space would not be an immediate trip after the war, after all there was still a whole planet to repair, a spaceship to outfit for extended travel, and some ex-Horde members to be redeemed. Glimmer was still a queen and her entire kingdom depended on her, and now Catra too, to help them restore balance after the events of Prime, and while she was working on sharing the responsibility with Micah, he could only do so much. 

Catra was brought out of her thoughts about space by Adora moving towards the larger map with her own smaller- now to scale- version of the capital city of Halfmoon. The map itself was nothing impressive, it seemed that the Horde hadn’t bothered to take the time to detail certain parts of the city since it was likely they would destroy most of it before the battle had even ended. The most they had to go on was the vaguely circular shape of the city and what seemed to be a few rolling hills covered with trees that had 4 paths marked on each nautical direction leading out of the city. 

“This map is way more up to date than the file.” Adora remarked mostly to herself, still trying to find where her smaller paper fit into the large scheme of things. “Did any of the reports say how much of the city was destroyed by the end of it?” she asked turning back towards her friends who stood and sat near the sprawling papers. 

Bow looked around, picked up a report and read aloud, “Estimated 60% of city destroyed.” Catra let out a quiet groan, “This is going to be impossible.”

“Not impossible! It just means we should possibly be looking for a clearing on the map rather than a standing kingdom.” Adora said, turning back to the map and moving her paper around with newfound vigor. 

-

The next few hours were spent by Adora marking down a few potential spots where the city may have once stood before the landscape shifted again and Bow and Glimmer popping out to the library to pick up books from Bow’s dads. By the time that the first moon began to rise, the group of 4 all sat with a book in their hands trying their best to pick out and copy down any information that may be useful in the future.

“Okay I think I’m more confused than I was before.” Glimmer remarked. “How is fishing one of their main food sources but there's no waterways anywhere remotely near them on the map?” she asked, setting the book down with a heavy _thunk._

“Wait, fishing? That doesn’t make sense.” Adora said, looking up from her own book and back to her map. None of the spots she had marked down were anywhere near a large enough body of water to warrant a whole diet based on fishing. 

Catra looked up from her own book to look up at the large map that towered above her from her position on a floor cushion before she noticed something.

“Hey, give me that.” she said as she snatched the smaller map out of Adora’s hands. “Hey! I was looking at that.” Adora said with a playful huff. Catra ignored her antics in favor of lining the map up with a spot on the paper in which 2 rivers intersected. 

“They’re not roads, they’re rivers.” she said with a small sense of wonder, grabbing a couple pins to stick the map in place. Adora now stood next to her, observing her placement of the map with her hands on her hips and a proud smile on her face. 

Glimmer and Bow rose to stand behind them, also observing the map where it was placed, just beyond the boundaries of the Fright Zone and into the Whispering Woods. Sure enough, the rivers that Catra had spotted ran in nearly perpendicular lines, crashing into each other just under where the castle on Adora’s map stood. Surrounding the immediate area where the rivers crossed, was a small clearing surrounded by trees and a few scattered hills.

“Good job, baby!” Adora said, putting her arms around Catra’s shoulders. Catra huffed and replied, “Oh no, you are not calling me that. I’m not a child.” Adora shook with laughter.

“So I could have called you that when we were kids? Damn, I really wasted my time with that one, didn’t I?” 

“I would have kicked you in the stomach if you’d tried.” Catra responded with a mischievous smirk as she moved to poke Adora in the ribs. Adora quickly dodged Catra’s attack and tackled her into the pile of pillows that they had stood from where Melog lay, mostly asleep, as they let out an irritated _meow._

“Sorry, Melog.” Adora laughed from her place atop Catra. Behind them, Glimmer let out a sigh and said, “Alright, I think that’s enough for the night. We can pick this up again in the morning.”

After bookmarking all the pages they were on and trying to organize the papers that had been haphazardly strewn about the room, each pair said their goodnights and headed to their respective rooms.

In their room, Catra sat in front of the vanity that held a large round mirror through which her reflection stared back at her. She had been trying to brush her hair back so she could braid it before Adora came out of the bathroom, but all of her frustrations from the day were weighing heavy on her shoulders and were not being eased by the fact that she couldn’t seem to get the brush to pass through her hair more than once without breaking it. Sighing, she set the brush down and placed her head in her hands before she heard gentle footsteps approaching, quiet but loud enough to alert her that Adora was approaching.

“You alright?” Adora whispered into Catra’s ear as she slipped her arms around her and rested her chin on her shoulder. Catra raised her head just enough to look at Adora through the mirror and leaned back into the embrace.

“Yeah, I’m alright. Today was just a lot, ya know?” she responded, appreciating the strong hold.

“Yeah, I know. You want me to help?” Adora asked, eyeing the brush with a twinkle in her eye.

“You just want an excuse to play with my hair.” Catra laughed, handing Adora the brush.

“Maybe.” She said with a gentle smile, taking the brush and beginning to brush out a small section of Catra’s hair. Catra watched through the mirror as her girlfriend, with far more patience than she had the energy to match, worked through her hair slowly setting chunks aside as she finished them before gathering it all together into two french braids that rested just against Catra’s shoulder blades.

Adora placed a kiss to the top of Catra’s head before setting the brush down on the vanity. “All done.” She took her partner’s hands and guided them to the bed as they settled into a comfortable embrace. 

“How are you feeling about all this?” Adora asked while running her thumbs over Catra’s shoulders. 

Catra pondered for a moment and said, “I’m not sure. There’s too many unknown variables. For all we know there could be nothing there now, or there could be barely anything still standing.” She sighed and buried her head further into Adora’s chest. “I just wonder where they all went, honestly. What if they’re still out there and they just never noticed I was gone?

“Don’t get me wrong, no matter what or who we find I’m not leaving you guys behind, but… what if I do have a family out there?” Catra mumbled, “Or worse what if I get my hopes up and then I don’t?” 

“I guess we’ll just have to deal with that when we get there.” Adora responded, pulling her partner closer. “You’re right, there’s a lot of unknowns, but the only thing we can do is go and look and try to find some of the answers we’re looking for.

“If you want, tomorrow we can take Swift Wind out and scout the area to see what we can see from the air before actually making a trip on foot.” Adora offered. 

Catra groaned inwardly, “I think I would rather take Melog out, personally. You can stay with your horse though, if you want.” The relationship between Catra and Swift Wind was tenuous at best, but both could tell that the other cared deeply for Adora so they tolerated each other when necessary. Adora laughed a bit at that and said, “Alright, sounds like a plan.”

From her place against Adora’s chest Catra mumbled, “Hey Adora?”

“Yeah?” Adora responded, craning her neck to look at her face.

“Thanks. For like, helping and everything. This would be way more stressful on my own. I’m really glad you’re here.” Catra said, looking up a little. 

Adora beamed down at her, “I’ll always be here for you, Catra. I know you’d do the same for me.” to which Catra mumbled an honest, “Yeah.”

“I love you, get some rest. We have a big day ahead of us tomorrow.” Adora said, kissing the top of her head.

“I love you, too.” Catra yawned, closing her eyes and falling asleep to the feeling of Adora rubbing slow circles into her back.

It would be a long day tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^ (edit) this is a map of the kingdom so y'all can see what I'm talking about.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Slight spoiler/TW) This chapter contains some descriptions of some long dead bodies. Nothing graphic, but I think it is important to note just in case.

As promised, the next day, Adora and Catra headed out to scout the area before bringing in the whole group to canvas the area. Adora and Swift Wind flew farther ahead of Catra and Melog, who traipsed through the woods easily on foot despite the light snow now covering the ground. Through their earpieces, they spoke.

“I think I see something!” Adora called through the device, wind and hair whipping into her sentence. 

“Safe enough for us to follow down?” Catra asked, spotting Swift Wind circling in the air not too far ahead of them. 

“Should be, watch your step though. There seems to be a lot of collapsed buildings.” 

Catra and Melog approached an end to the trees and entered a clearing just ahead of them. As soon as the trees cleared, Catra saw what seemed to be an old entrance to the city where a giant pillar lay, resting on its partner, towering over a great rushing river that ran further behind grand stone walls. 

Adora and Swift wind landed next to where Catra was now positioned, mouth slightly agape at the sight in front of her. “So, for the most part, the walls seem to be intact except for one spot at the west entrance. That must be where the Horde came in.” Adora explained, pointing towards a spot where Catra now noticed a pile of stone that had fallen out of the wall and left a considerable hole big enough to bring a few lines of tanks through.

“I guess that’s our access point.” Catra sighed as she hopped off Melog and began to walk towards the fault in the wall. As she approached she saw the remnants of what could have once been houses or stores but were now too far burnt beyond recognition to know. There were Horde symbols splattered across what remaining surfaces they could still see, a clear reminder of the devastation caused so many years prior. As they looked around the town, an eerie silence settled over the 4 beings. The snow was still coming down lightly, although it had mostly eased up from earlier in the morning and it left a white blanket across the whole city, burying it further than it likely already had been.

Catra ran her hands along the structure immediately to her right, too big to be a house, but perhaps it once held a business or factory of some sort. She laid her fingers lightly over the decaying paneling as if it might collapse even further under her soft touch. 

“We should look for anything dangerous so we don’t get blindsided if we actually decide to bring more people in.” Catra said, extending her hand out to Adora who quickly took it and walked alongside her. For all its scale on the map, the city itself wasn’t as big as they expected. There were the ruins of what was certainly at one time several looming structures. As they walked through the aisles of what appeared to be an old market place they could see various stalls overturned with decayed goods thrown about the ground. At one point, Melog stuck their nose under the fabric of a stall and brought out an old shawl, now dirty with time but mostly intact. It was a light blue color with intricate designs embroidered around the edges, and Catra shook it off and laid it across Melog’s back to bring back with them to Bright Moon and to provide some warmth to the creature. 

“Looks good on you, buddy.” Catra smiled despite her nerves at Melog who let out a happy trill. They continued further into the city, following alongside the western river until they reached what seemed to be the center of the town. Before them was a half standing castle, the entire western wing of which seemed to be only support pillars and rubble. 

Adora reached for Catra’s hand once more. “We don’t have to go any farther today, I think we’ve done enough scouting to know it’s safe to bring at least Glimmer and Bow here.” In reality, they had covered only the western most quadrant of the city which had likely been evacuated as soon as the Horde cleared the outermost wall of the city, but she knew Adora was probably just as freaked out by this city as she was. Any traces of people were likely to be further in the opposite direction where they may have fled away from the Horde’s advancements. 

Catra was about to agree with Adora so they could exit the eerily empty town before something inside the ruined castle caught her eye. A glint of a light blue light, unnatural against the pale white now spilling indoors through the exploded side, twinkled back at her. 

“What’s that?” she asked, pulling Adora towards the magnificent building. As they carefully made their way around rubble, the pair entered what they guessed to be the throne room in the center of the castle. 

There were drapes in tatters around the floors and walls and several beams seemed to be standing on their last legs, seemingly willing to give at the slightest tremble. Two large thrones were positioned at the top of the room atop a platform that ran like a bridge across a large channel where water slowly trickled through. If they had to guess, they would say that was probably the northernmost river, now blocked by rubble from the surrounding cave ins. They observed the Easternmost river as it cut a clean line through the center of the room, cutting off the entrance from the thrones if not for two symmetrical bridges that allowed crossing on either side of the rut probably designed for the Northern river to run south. Behind the thrones, Catra spotted the same blue glow that had caught her eye in the first place. 

Towering over them and nearly reaching the ceiling of the large room was a glowing First One’s tower. It was covered in twinkling blue and green lights that seemed to be half activated, as if waiting for a final command that would never come. Adora gaped at the tower while Catra ran her eyes over the surrounding area before something caught her eye at the very base of the tower. Covered in the recent snowfall was the skeleton of a finely dressed person with their hand still outstretched towards and resting on a control panel at the base of the structure. Adora looked back at Catra and noticed her eyes trained on the spot and followed her gaze before gasping in surprise at the sight before them. If not for their location and the fangs still embedded within the skull, the person could have been mistaken for any number of species, but it was clear to the pair that this was someone who once resided within the city of magicats. 

“Catra…” Adora started. “We should get Entrapta in here. She can deal with the first ones tech the best.” Catra interrupted, trying her hardest not to start crying at the sight of the person who lost their life at the hands of the Horde probably trying to protect the city in a final righteous act. Since the end of the war, Catra had oftentimes found herself mourning for those who she did not know; not always crying but often paying respects to those who had lost their lives fighting her forces when she was allowed. Some families who had lost someone to the war seemed offended or at least off put by her appearances around the world, now trying to help, but some seemed genuinely happy to accept the help and were just as excited to show equal kindness in turn to the ex-Horde commander turned beloved of the mighty She-Ra. But now here she was, standing in front of one of her own people who had lost their lives to the institution that she used to fight for so strongly. She idly wonders if she had ever met them as a baby. 

Adora nodded silently and followed Catra out of the ruins carefully so as not to disturb the building any more than necessary to where Melog and Swift Wind waited for them. “We came in through the west so let’s leave through the east and see if we can cover any more ground before we head back.” Catra suggested as she idly scratched under Melog’s chin. She started to walk in the direction opposite from where they came before Adora grabbed her wrist and turned her so they faced each other. 

“Are you okay? You seemed pretty freaked out back there.” Adora said carefully, keeping her voice down as if there was someone else around to hear besides Swift Wind and Melog who looked about ready to pounce on a snowbank. Swift Wind spoke a million miles an hour about the time he had flown through a blizzard while Melog simply nodded back and in their own language that no one but Catra could hear provided  _ ‘Oh really?’ ‘That’s impossible.’  _ and _ ‘You didn’t do that’  _ but seeming to actually enjoy the company of the loud alicorn. 

Catra glanced back at them before turning back to Adora. She had been half prepared to have to hold herself back from an onslaught of tears but instead took another step closer to Adora to wrap her arms around her waist. Adora returned in kind and put her arms around her girlfriend’s shoulders as Catra leaned her head into the crook of her neck. 

“It’s just a lot.” Catra sighed, feeling the emotions from the past day bubbling up again and wanting nothing more than to be back in their room in Brightmoon happily whispering to each other before they knew about any of this. 

Adora kissed the top of Catra’s head and rested her cheek against the curls of her hair, “I know this has gotta be hard for you, and I’m so proud of you for coming out today.” she said, hugging her tighter before sliding her hands down to grip Catra’s. “Let’s head out so we can tell Bow and Glimmer what we found. We can come back another day with Entrapta and figure out what First One’s tech is doing in the middle of Halfmoon. It’ll be alright, Catra. I promise.” she said, bringing Catra’s hands to her lips and pressing gentle kisses to the inside of her palms. 

Catra let out a heavy sigh, “I know it will be. As long as I have you with me it’ll be alright.” she said, not knowing whether she was reassuring herself or Adora anymore. “Let’s go.”

The group walked towards the eastern sector of the town, the amount of rubble seeming to lessen as they approached the less destroyed portion of town. When they crossed under a stone arch built into a short inner wall, they could tell that the sector they had just entered was residential. This, however, was not what in particular had caught their eye. Among the decrepit but still standing houses was a dumping ground. Long empty Horde issue armor lay abandoned in the streets next to broken tools and weapons that were left behind in piles. Unsettled, they continued walking further into the streets, noting that the buildings here had not been charred but had still sustained considerable structural damage from the lack of maintenance. 

They had passed through about three quarters of the residential area before coming to a stop in front of a large barricade. “The hell?” Catra said, walking to the base of the barricade and running her hand along scorch marks that marred the wooden barrier. 

Standard issue Horde blasters.

She knocked at some of the furniture that made up the barricade and found that it was surprisingly well constructed and stable and likely wouldn’t fall apart unless any significant pressure was put upon it. Looking around the buildings, it almost seemed there was no way past the barricade without climbing and risking it falling apart underneath them, and Catra began to steel herself for a short flight over it on Swift Wind before she came to a large gap at the side of the structure. Towards the end of the barricade where it stretched to the outer wall of the city, there sat a gap the size of a Horde tank where it seems one had run straight through the furniture now crumpled under its weight on the ground. 

“Hey, Adora!” Catra called from the gap. Adora came bounding over from where she had been scouting the other half of the barricade. Eyeing the opening she said, “Oh yeah, that’ll do it.”

The two girls climbed carefully over the barricade, watching each other as they went to make sure that the other did not miss a foothold or step onto a decayed hole in the furniture. Catra landed gracefully on the other side of the structure sinking slightly into the snow piled on the other side and looked up to the scene in front of her. As Adora landed next to her shortly after, she let out a soft, “Holy shit.”

The image in front of them was horrifying. Scattered about, there lay a little over 20 different skeletons whose clothing all were in varying states of decay. There were some laid up against buildings, some against the barricade, and some further towards the archway that led out of the city next to the river. All of them were somewhat covered by the light snowfall. 

A long silence stretched over the group as even Swift Wind fell silent for the first time that evening. Melog walked over and sat next to Catra who was stuck in place in a mix of horror and shock. They nudged their head into her hand and Catra snapped out of her trance for a moment to settle her hand more firmly down against their head. She took a minute to count the ones she could see, no doubt there was more now buried under the previous night’s snowfall. 

24 in total.

“We should bury them.” Catra finally said, voice shaking and breaking the silence. “When we come back, or just when we can.” Adora grabbed her hand, “Yeah, we should. We’ll be really careful.” They carefully stepped through the remainder of the town, Catra making a silent promise to them to come back and see them properly laid to rest. 

-

Upon their return to Brightmoon, The pair filled in Bow and Glimmer on what they had discovered. They had the reactions that were to be expected, horror at the actions of the horde, shock at the discovery of so many bodies left undisturbed, and empathy at the sight of Catra who was still processing the events of the day. Catra sat against a windowsill in her and Adora’s room, stroking a shrunken Melog who sat in her lap as a grounding force. Her tail whipped behind her in anxiety as she practised the breathing exercises Perfuma had taught her. 

“Our best bet is probably to get Entrapta down here to look through the data from the First One’s tower.” Bow said. “If someone was next to it while trying to activate it, they must have been able to use it for their own purposes. Maybe it can tell us something about the kingdom.” he said looking up hopefully at Catra who nodded idly while continuing to look out the window. 

“In a couple of days, most of the snow should be melted.” Adora offered. “That’s probably going to be the best time to go back and actually look properly through the city.”

“What do you want to look for?” Glimmer asked, looking up from the tracker pad in her hands where she had been drafting a message to Entrapta.

Adora looked thoughtfully towards Catra, “I’m not sure. Maybe some clues as to where the rest of them fled to? The reports said that a good portion of them made it out; maybe they’re still out there.”

“So, what, we start going through their houses?” Catra asked, finally looking back towards the group. “Even if they’re gone now, isn’t that just a little weird? Somehow I doubt one of them left a diary behind that tells us where their secret second base is.” She knew that she was allowing her defensiveness to get the better of her, but the events of the past couple days were starting to grate against her carefully cultivated patience. She took a deep breath in and out before continuing, “Isn’t that, like, an invasion of privacy?”

“Something tells me that these guys don’t have any plans to come back anytime soon. If they wanted to reclaim their kingdom, right after the war would have been the time to do it.” She sighed, “Maybe there’s some records somewhere that can at least point us in the right direction.”

A thousand thoughts ran through Catras head at that moment. The Horde could have destroyed all the records. Everyone could have been caught and dispatched somewhere else that they just haven’t found yet. What if they found the rest of them and they wanted nothing to do with her? Worse, what if they did? Would they try to take her back and away from her friends? Would they hate her because she didn’t act like them and know all their customs and abandon her again? She stopped. She knew she was spiraling again, and she tried her best to bring herself out of it by leaning her head against the cool glass of the window. She staved off the instinct that told her to find a high corner or branch to perch on and held on tighter to Melog who in turn licked the backside of one of her hands to remind her that they were there for her. 

Catra could hear the other three talking still, but their voices sounded distant and she stopped trying to pick out individual words a while ago. She focused instead on the way the snow on the glass where she had put her head had begun to melt and trickle slowly towards the bottom of the window frame. She was so focused on the miniscule race between two water droplets that she startled when a blanket was placed over her shoulders. 

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.” Adora said as she slid behind Catra on the window frame and brought her legs up to hold Catra between them. She rubbed her hands lightly up and down Catra’s arms, trying to bring some warmth back to the area. Catra realized then that she had been shivering slightly but had been ignoring it in favor of not letting her mind lead her into a hole. 

“If I ask you something, will you answer honestly?” Adora asked. She knew logically that Catra tried not to lie anymore but was sometimes prone to falling into old habits when her defenses came up. Catra nodded hesitantly.

“Do you want to keep looking into this? I know it’s a lot to process, but it seems like everytime we try to talk about the next step you kind of check out.” She stopped her ministrations in favor of wrapping her arms around Catra’s shoulders loosely so she didn’t feel trapped. “I don’t want to push you to do something you don’t want to do just because you think I want you to.”

Catra had noticed that Adora seemed to be excited to learn more about her past, but she knew that if she asked her to drop it she would. Catra let out a small sigh as she leaned back into the embrace and Melog jumped from her lap. 

“I do. I want to keep going. I want to know about my family.” There had seldom been a time in her past that she did not wonder where she came from before she was supposedly dropped off at the Fright Zone. She was always taught that she was lucky she had been brought there, otherwise she may have had to face the tyrannical rule of the princesses and their terrible powers. There had been very limited education in the Horde about where children actually came from, but they all knew they had to have come from somewhere, some of the older cadets telling stories of families that they vaguely remembered before being brought to the Horde.

She ran her hands through her hair, “I’m just scared.” A few years ago, if anyone had tried to get her to admit she was scared, she would have clawed their eyes out. Now, in the safety of Adora’s arms, she no longer felt the need. “Because, what if we end up finding nothing and then this was a huge waste of time and we just delayed our trip more because I was selfish and-”

“Stop.” Adora interrupted. “You are not being selfish. You deserve to know. The Horde took you from your home and your family, and you deserve the answers to every question you’ve ever had about them.” Catra took a moment to think about Adora’s affirmations.

“It would kind of be the biggest middle finger to our upbringing.” Catra chuckled.

“That it would be.” Adora smiled back at her, happy to have gotten a laugh out of her. 

“Sorry for being so spacey.” Catra said as she turned her body to lay her ear against Adora’s heart.

“Don’t be. It’s a lot to deal with. I’m not upset about that, I just wanted to make sure you were comfortable.” Adora said, running her hands through Catra’s hair. 

“I am now.” Catra responded, content to lay in Adora’s arms for the rest of the day and suddenly grateful that Glimmer had scheduled a godforsaken amount of meetings for the day and allowed her time now to deal with the situation at hand. 

In a couple days, they would head back to Halfmoon with the rest of the squad and Entrapta to tap into the First One’s tech and learn what they could about Catra’s people. Until then, they thought, they deserved a nap. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^ this is a rough drawing of what the throne room looks like since I don't think the description was too clear, but I didn't want to spend any more time on it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the next chapter might not be done for a while bc I think I burned myself out just a little but I'm working on it!

Catra stood again in front of the towering wall where the western entrance into Halfmoon once stood. Hardly anything had changed since she and Adora had visited a few days ago except that the snow had finally melted to reveal the ground and more rubble beneath it. This time, she and Adora were accompanied by Bow and Entrapta who had walked in front of them with directions to the castle which held the First One’s tech. Glimmer had wanted to make the trip with them, but in an effort to lift off from Etheria sooner, she had taken on more work to keep them on schedule and prepare the kingdom for her absence. 

By the time they made it to where Entrapta had set up shop next to the tower, her computer was already hooked into several wires that connected to the glowing plugs. 

“Oh, good! You caught up!” Entrapta exclaimed, standing on her pigtails and moving wildly around the tower in fascination.

Catra eyed the way she moved near the skeleton, haphazardly. “Careful there.” She said, placing herself between Entrapta’s workstation and the skeleton. She suddenly felt protective of this unknown person and really didn’t want to lose any pieces of them before they had the chance to bury them. 

“According to my readings, it seems like this tower was used by the citizens of Half moon to record their own data. They figured out how to rewire the tech so they could record information!” Entrapta continued, not acknowledging Catra’s words but moving noticeably more carefully and slower around the tower. 

“Like the recordings in Alwyn? The First Ones had some holograms that freaked the farmers out and ran them out of town.” Bow asked. Catra laughed a little under her breath as she saw Adora shiver a bit at the memory of the ‘haunted’ farming town she had once visited. Catra had been told most of the story of that day, but her big take away from it was that Adora was still scared of the old Horde stories they had been told as kids despite the fact that she herself was now a princess as were most of her closest friends.

“Precisely! This tower should be almost identical to the tower from Alwyn with the exception that this one is in much better condition and has had some minor modifications made to it.” Entrapta continued, typing away at something on her computer before an image of her flashed across the screen with a frown and a thumbs down. Entrapta let out a confused hum before dismissing the image and continuing to type. She got the image twice more before she yelled out, “Aha!” and turned towards Catra. 

“Catra, I need your hand!” she said, grabbing Catra’s wrist with a tendril of hair and pulling her towards the tower. She stopped short of the control panel when she once again noticed the skeleton lying against it. “Oh, um, maybe we should move this.” Entrapta said, eyeing where the hand was still placed against the tech.

From behind them Bow said, “I’ve got it. My dads taught me a thing or two when I helped them excavate before.” He pulled gloves out of his bag and laid out a small blanket. He began to gingerly move each bone and lay them out in the correct position on the blanket until they were completely detached from the panel. Entrapta immediately took to dusting off the surface with a rag before typing something on her computer.

“So I figured out that this tower was modified so that it was only accessible to residents of Halfmoon. They seemed to have outfitted it to recognize everyone who lived here! What a feat of engineering!” she exclaimed with stars in her eyes.

“So only Catra can activate it?” Adora asked, warily eyeing where Bow was carefully moving bones.

“That’s correct!” Entrapta responded, once again moving towards the panel. She laid her own hand on the panel which flashed a bright red.

_ “User not detected. Please try again.” _ called a robotic voice from the tower. Everyone save for Entrapta startled a little at the sudden appearance of the voice. 

“Watch this!” Entrapta said, guiding Catra’s hand towards the panel. As soon as she laid it against the flat surface, the entire tower lit up a gentle blue.

_ “User recognized. Welcome Sol Fenire.”  _

“Who?” Catra asked, looking at the flickering lights.

“Aah! It recognizes you!” Entrapta yelled as the system continued to speak.

_ “This profile was last accessed twenty-three years, 3 months, and 6 days ago by Dante Fenire. Would you like to view your recordings?” _

“Yes!” Entrapta responded to the system. The lights continued to pulsate under Catra’s hand, but nothing else seemed to move or respond back to her. Catra eyed the panel where her hand still layed and spoke again.

“Um, yes?” Catra offered. The tower’s lights ran up to the top where they began to project a hazy image. The group watched as a hologram attempted to take shape in the vague form of a person but continued to flicker uselessly as broken clips of degraded speech began to play. 

“Hmm, it seems like the system has been slightly corrupted due to its time left abandoned, but it’s still in much better shape than some of the things I’ve studied. I’ll have it up and running in no time!” Entrapta said, moving her mask across her face as diagrams began to run across her screen once more. Catra removed her hand from the panel and the hologram disappeared as the lights ran back to the rest of the tower. 

“It called you Sol.” Adora said from behind Catra with her eyes wide. Catra could feel her tail begin to whip behind her in anxiety and suddenly wished she had brought Melog with her. 

“Yeah, I guess it did.” she said quietly.

“Do you think that was your name? Sol Fenire?” Adora asked as Catra made her way slowly back over from the tower.

Lifting her mask up, Entrapta quickly responded, “Oh definitely! The control pad is rigged to act as a scanner that identified her handprint. There’s a lot of files in here, probably one for everyone in the city at least!” she said excitedly. 

“I mean, I knew Catra wasn’t the name you were born with. After all, I was the one who gave that to you.” Adora said, laying her hand on the small of Catra’s back and trying to provide some comfort.

“You did?” Bow asked, looking up from his task with stars in his eyes, clearly ready for them to tell the story of Catra’s name.

“Yeah, when Catra came to the Horde they didn’t know her name so they let us come up with one for her.” Adora responded, looking somewhat sheepish. “ ‘Us’ being?” Bow prompted.

“Well, me and a couple of other cadets they left her with. Although, she wouldn’t really even look at the other cadets so they just gave up and let me do it. All I did was take the word ‘cat’ and my name and mash them together.” Adora said, rubbing her neck as a blush began to overtake her face. Bow looked like he was about to explode because of cuteness at the sound of the story. “I was, like, five at most!” Adora attempted to defend. 

Catra looked between where Entrapta now sat, huddled in front of her own screens and the tower. “Who’s Dante Fenire then?” she asked into the space, to no one in particular. 

“Most likely a relative. Maybe a dad? Or a brother?” Bow offered, moving to sit next to Entrapta to observe the readings. 

Catra felt nauseous, whether from just learning about another family member or the fact that she hadn’t been able to eat much before they left she wasn’t sure. Luckily, Adora seemed to be very tuned into every small movement she made.

“Hey,” Adora said softly, “let’s sit down before you fall down.” she said, guiding both of them to sit on the floor against a wall. She rubbed small soothing circles into her back as Catra leaned into Adora’s shoulder. “You okay? You look like you’re going to be sick.” Adora whispered. 

Catra considered the question. Really, she was okay. She may have been hit with a wave of nausea, but she didn’t actively feel like her breakfast was going to come up. 

“I’ll be alright. I just got nauseous all the sudden.” Catra said, content to sit with Adora until Entrapta and Bow figured out how to get the holograms running. Adora hummed in acknowledgement and laid her head against Catra’s as they watched their friends work. They sat for about half an hour and Catra wasn’t surprised to feel herself beginning to fall asleep. She had been awake for most of the night, worrying about what came next and had only ended up sleeping for about 2 hours in total. This combined with the warmth Adora provided only made her purr ramp up a bit as she drifted off. 

“I got it!” Entrapta called out as she shot up on her hair and back towards the tower. She paused before the panel before seeming to remember that she needed Catra for this part and looked back towards the previously napping girl. Catra had shot straight up, tail fluffing out, and hand quickly finding Adora’s before she realized it was her friend who made the disruption. Catra grumbled sleepily and stood to walk back over to the control panel. Entrapta gave her a wide smile, “Ready when you are!”

Catra placed her hand on the panel, and the lights flashed once more.

_ “User recognized. Welcome Sol Fenire. This profile was last accessed 37 minutes ago by Sol Fenire. Would you like to view your recordings?” _

“Yes.” Catra responded shortly. Slowly, all of the lights began their ascent back to the top of the tower and a projection once again formed in front of them. At first, the group thought nothing had happened as it seemed like the tower was simply shining a light on the ground in front of Catra’s feet. 

“Maybe I missed something?” Entrapta wonder aloud before a voice spoke from the tower.

_ “Recording. Please proceed with your message.” _ called the same robotic voice from before. 

“Does it want me to record something?” Catra asked hesitantly, about to pull her hand from the panel before a child’s laughter echoed across the space. The group startled and began to look around for the source of the noise before realizing it had come from the tower. 

_ “Come here, little one.”  _ called a man’s voice as the child’s laughter became quieter but continued on nonetheless.  _ “Are we ready?”  _ asked a different man's voice.  _ “Yes, I think so.”  _ responded the first man. All at once, 4 people entered the hologram’s field of vision.

Two well dressed men were the first people they noticed. The taller one had tan colored fur that stuck out at every odd angle, stripes criss crossing up and down his exposed arms, and short cropped hair. The shorter man had darker colored and shorter fur and sported a longer braid from the sides of which grew two lightly colored tufts that were left out. The colors were distorted due to the light blue nature of the hologram, but with context clues it could be discerned that the taller man had bright blue eyes and the shorter man had glowing yellow ones. The first man was holding a writhing young girl who looked to be about 6 years old with very poofy hair and evidently mismatched eyes. When her cape flew up, they could see she sported the same stripes along her arms and tufts as her fathers and Catra guessed she was the child who they had heard laughing earlier. The other man was holding a baby swaddled in a blanket whose eyes were closed and had dark hair sticking out of the top of the swaddle; all were magicats. Catra’s heart dropped to her feet. 

_ “Settle down, Anjie.” _ said the taller man who was holding the older girl as the robotic voice returned. 

_ “Please state your names for the record.” _ The men looked at each other and then back towards whatever device had been recording them. The taller man spoke first,  _ “My name is Dante Fenire. This is my husband Gale Fenireand our daughters Anjie and Sol.” _ he spoke, motioning towards each person in turn and finishing with the baby swaddled in the arms of the man they now knew as Gale. From within the pale blue light of the hologram, the group could see a light flash across the faces of the small family briefly before returning to normal.

_ “Please proceed with your message.”  _ said the robotic voice _.  _

_ “Hey, baby.”  _ said Gale with a gentle smile.  _ “If you’re watching this it means that you just turned 18, so congrats on that.”  _ He looked down at the baby in his arms.  _ “Right now you’re only 3 months old, but we want you to know that you and your sister are two of the best things we ever decided to make in our lives. You bring so much joy into the world every day, and I know you’re going to do great things when you’re older.”  _ He looked up at Dante with a small amount of tears beginning to pool in his eyes. Moving Anjie to one hip, Dante moved his free hand to Gale’s shoulder and turned towards the device to speak. 

_ “Hello, darling.”  _ Dante started, barely holding it together any better than his counterpart.  _ “This message isn’t supposed to be all encompassing, but there's something you need to know when you turn 18.”  _ He moved to cover Anjie’s ears by placing one hand against the further one and leaning her head against his shoulder. The young girl stopped wiggling for the first time since she arrived and settled into her father’s embrace. 

_ “At 15649 Nova Street, our house, there is a door hidden under our bed. In it you can find all of the things that are important to our family.”  _ The men shared a solemn look.  _ “Under normal circumstances we wouldn’t need to tell you this, but with the Horde coming closer to our borders, we want to be prepared for anything. We’re well hidden, but it never hurts to be safe. Angie doesn’t know about this yet either and hopefully neither of you will need to know until you’re of age and you can go down there for yourselves.”  _

Angie suddenly shot straight up and yelled,  _ “Lazuli!” _ and started wiggling again in an attempt to jump to the ground. The men laughed and Gale spoke,  _ “Do you want to say anything for your sister before you go play with Lazuli?”  _ Dante set her on the ground, and she turned to look at the recording device. With a great big smile she waved at the camera and said,  _ “I love you, sissy! I bet you’re gonna be real cool when you’re older because you’ll have me here to help!” _ She blew an exaggerated kiss to the camera and hugged Dante’s legs as Gale kneeled down to give her a proper hug before she placed a kiss on baby Catra’s forehead and ran off. 

Catra could feel her knees going weak and could tell that tears had been falling down her face for the past couple of minutes. When Anjie kissed her forehead, Catra brought her free hand up to her face and attempted to stifle a sob that made its way past her lips. Gale stood back up straight and Dante continued speaking, still looking off in the direction that Anjie had run in. 

_ “The code to the door is 02-12-62-56. Once you’re down there, you will find any pictures and records that our family kept down there for safekeeping. On one of the shelves towards the front, there should be a box with your name on it. In it is a necklace from your Grandma on Gale’s side. Anjie will get a similar one on her 18th birthday from my side of the family.” _ Children’s laughter echoed in the background of the recording, and Dante turned back towards the camera.

_ “Take good care of that necklace. Both of them have been passed down through several generations of our family and they mean a lot to us.”  _

Gale took the opportunity to speak,  _ “Gods forbid this ever happens, but-”  _

_ “Gale.”  _ Dante interrupted _. “It won’t happen.”  _

_ “We should be prepared just in case it does though.”  _ Gale responded with a stern look. He turned to look at the camera and continued with the same serious expression,  _ “It seems unlikely right now, but in case the Horde does manage to find us and invades our city, and… Sol if you’re the last one left, then you take care of yourself and your sister first. We don’t know when or if any of this will come to pass, but everyone is already ready to leave town just in case we are invaded. If worst comes to worst, there's a map in the hidden room that can lead you to our sister city where everyone will be waiting. It’s not accessible unless you have the map.” _ His face shifted back to the first unwavering kindness that he showed when he appeared.  _ “We love you both more than anything in the world, and we’ll protect you until the very end no matter what.”  _

_ “Anjie, darling, come here and say goodbye to your sister!” _ Dante called off to the side, and little footsteps came bounding towards the camera until Anjie appeared again with another small girl in tow.  _ “Bye Sol! Wait why do I have to say bye? She’s right here.”  _ The girl who was holding Anjie’s hand laughed and said,  _ “To the camera, silly. She isn’t gonna see this until she’s older.”  _ Anjie’s face dropped into an ‘O’ and she laughed herself.  _ “You’re so smart, Lazuli.”  _ She said, looking happily at her friend. Baby Catra began to stir in Gale’s arms and little arms poked out of the blanket to reach up towards the sky.  _ “That’s our cue.”  _ Dante laughed. Both men waved at the camera as the two girls began to chase each other around their legs. 

The hologram froze in place, both men with their hands lifted in a wave, the two young girls frozen in a run, and baby Catra with her arms extended towards Gale’s face. The blue light at the top of the tower flickered as it maintained the still image, and Catra dropped to her knees. Tears were flowing freely down her face and Adora rushed over to her side and wrapped her arms around her shoulders. Sobs and shudders racked through her body as she hugged herself closer to Adora’s chest. She was vaguely aware of Adora running her hand through her hair and whispering, “It’s okay, I’m here. You’re okay.” 

Several minutes passed before Catra’s sobs quieted enough for her to consider pulling her face away from Adora. She pulled back only enough to look back up at the frozen hologram and spared a moment to wonder where they were now. The files had said that her sister was her only known remaining family, so had she grabbed Catra and ran when the Horde invaded? And if so, where did her dads end up?

Catra’s hand finally slipped off the panel, and the image of her family disappeared. She ran her hands across her face in an attempt to clear the tears and snot that had built up and looked at the spot on Adora’s shirt where she just rose from.

“I got your shirt wet.” She said, almost quiet enough that Adora would not have heard her had she not been sitting right in front of her.

“That’s alright.” Adora chuckled kindly. “Are you okay? I don’t think that’s what any of us expected to find.” she said, cupping Catra’s cheek gently with one hand and running her thumb over the area. 

Catra sniffed and looked up towards her other friends, of which Bow looked about as close to tears as she felt and Entrapta was scribbling something down on a notepad. While she felt immeasurable grief at discovering her family only to know that they were already gone, a part of her felt lighter than it ever had at the discovery. To know that, even before she had Adora, she was loved and protected. 

“Yeah, I think I’ll be alright.” Catra said with a sad smile. “I do want to check out the house though. See if there's anything still there. Maybe it’s still somewhat intact, the residential quarter didn’t seem to be too blown up. Just sort of, you know, barricaded.” 

Entrapta moved a piece of hair towards the pair and a paper fell in Catra’s lap. “Here, I wrote down the address and the code that they mentioned. While you go search the house, I’m gonna see if I can extract any more data from the tower. I think I may have figured out a way around the hand scanner!” she announced, moving again towards the tower and beginning to move some of her wires around. 

“I should probably stay here to make sure nothing falls on Entrapta while she’s working.” Bow said. “But call me on the tracker pads if you need help with anything.” The girls nodded and stood once more to move out of the castle. Once outside, Catra paused.

“They said there was a sister city.” she said, looking up towards the sky. Looking back at Adora she continued, “Maybe that’s where they went.”

“Maybe.” Adora said with a soft smile. They both knew that the other wouldn’t speak in absolutes; they wouldn’t say something was set in stone without all the facts for fear of jinxing it. In instances like these, there would always be more questions than answers, but as time went on, they were sure that they could learn together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ^ this is a concept of what her family looks like. I'm not the best artist by any means, but I figured a visual aid couldn't hurt!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me? Writing 13 whole pages in 5 hours after putting off writing for like 2 weeks? It's more likely than you think.  
> Thanks for the patience and support!  
> TW// in this chapter for descriptions of an anxiety attack and some more bodies

Catra and Adora began their trek back outside the castle, leaving Bow and Entrapta to continue fiddling with the First One’s tower. They were able to retrace their steps from the week previous and made their way through the ruined streets. Adora, for the most part, split her focus between searching for street signs and observing Catra. They had no detailed map of the city and so their best bet was to begin walking through the streets once more and hope that the sign they were looking for had not been destroyed along with a good portion of the town. 

As for observing Catra, Adora knew better than most just how good Catra was at hiding her emotions and although years had passed since she had begun to work with Adora again, she still sometimes had a tendency to clam up when exposed to a particularly stressful situation. That being said, this definitely counted as a stressful situation.

“Hey, you doing alright?” Adora asked, noticing that Catra had seemed to be only looking down and following the steps of Adora’s own feet. She had been asking that alot lately, and she couldn’t help but feel somewhat powerless in this situation. There was little more she could do other than be there for Catra and try to help her answer some of her questions. 

“As good as I can be, I guess.” Catra responded, finally meeting her eyes. “I just want to find the house and see if there's anything left of it.”

Adora nodded in agreement and moved to hold Catra’s hand as they continued their march through the streets. For the most part, aside from the area around the barricade, the residential sector of the town seemed to be fairly intact. They had been walking for nearly 45 minutes when Catra pulled Adora to a stop.

“Hey, look at this.” Catra moved to stand over a sign that lay flat on the ground, different from the intact signs they had passed before which stood tall over them. As Adora moved with her, she read the sign in front of them. The words  _ ‘Nova St.” _ faintly stood out from the wood in which they were emblazoned on. The pair looked up towards the street that the sign once stood in front of and shared a determined look before taking off down the street. They walked slowly down the smooth cobblestone path, looking for any indications of numbers that would identify the house they were looking for. every so often glancing back down at the paper Entrapta had given them. They were nearing the end of the short street when Adora mumbled something to herself and looked up and down rapidly between a house and the paper. 

“Wait!” she exclaimed. “This is it! 15649!” Adora pointed towards the house she had been looking at. In front of them stood a small adobe cottage. It was slightly tan in color with a light blue door that swung on its hinges in the wind. The front of the house was surrounded by an old wooden fence with a gate that stood at about half their height; it seemed it was more for decoration than actually practically keeping anything out. The short trail to the door was covered in similar smooth stones to those that covered the streets. Various plants that varied between dead from lack of care to overgrown from lack of pruning spread over the small space in front of the house. Off to the right side of the house sat a small trunk that seemed to be overflowing with old gardening supplies. Catra spared a moment to wonder if her fathers had spent a lot of time maintaining these plants. 

Adora approached the fence and reached to the other side to release a latch that allowed the gate to swing open. And right off its hinges. Adora visibly winced as the wood clattered to the ground and looked back to Catra. 

“Sorry.” she said through clenched teeth. Catra was torn between making a snide remark about how Adora had been here for 5 minutes and was already tearing up her house before the thought of this being  _ her _ house left her feeling strangely empty. She looked between the fallen gate and Adora and shrugged.

“Not really mine, is it? No need to apologize.” she settled for saying before stepping over the gate and into the small yard. 

“I mean, isn’t it? If it’s anyone’s, it’s yours. They did kind of leave it to you.” Adora said apprehensively. Catra merely shrugged and held her hand out towards Adora, a silent ask for her to take it before they continued any further in. Adora took Catra’s hand, gave it what she hoped translated into a reassuring squeeze, and walked to stand beside her as they took in more of their surroundings. Up closer to the door was a small round table that was covered in multicolored mosaic pieces and was surrounded by 2 regular sized chairs and one smaller one. Off to the left side of the house, they could see a small chimney peeking out from behind a tree. Various other decorations hung about the house, and it appeared that there were some that had long since fallen victim to the harsh weather of the area. 

The pair continued their slow walk until they reached the slightly open door in front of them. Catra paused, her hand outreached towards the handle. 

“Do you need a minute?” Adora asked, rubbing small circles with her thumb into the back of Catra’s hand. A million things raced through Catra’s mind as she looked past the frosted glass window in the door. She was unsure what they were going to find upon entering, perhaps the answers to all her childhood questions or perhaps an empty house that had been ransacked after the Horde invasion. Regardless, she reasoned, she would never know unless she opened the door.

“No.” she gripped the handle. “It’ll be okay. Let’s go.” She swung the door open. With an egregious creak, the door opened fully, thankfully not falling off its hinges like the gate had. Immediately, they were met with a stale stench and a large puff of dust that seemed like it had settled atop the door and was disturbed by the new motion. Upon first glance, the house seemed to be in a fair shape. A few items were toppled off of surfaces, but that was to be expected considering the rush everyone likely left in, and dust hung in the air as though there were no place for it to escape to. On further examination, they noticed that the path of fallen objects seemed to follow a path. Directly in front of them was a hallway that opened into a quaint living space on their left, a small kitchen on the right, and an extended hallway that continued past towards more doors. The pair took one more deep breath before crossing the threshold. Inside the living space, there were various frames and trinkets scattered about but it seemed to be largely undisturbed. A blanket thrown across a couch, some tools laid in front of the chimney that were covered in ash from a fire long since extinguished, a pile of shoes near the door (a couple of which were caked in old mud), and a small dining table that was half set and surrounded with three more chairs and a highchair. If the ever present stench of mold was anything to go by, they could guess that the pots on top of the stove in the adjacent kitchen had once been filled with food to be served on the day the house was left. It looked like the house had been abandoned in the middle of the day and without much consideration.

Exiting the living area, the girls continued down the hallway and peered into the first door they saw. Inside was what appeared to be a child’s bedroom. It was decorated floor to ceiling with various multicolored decorations. Streamers hung from the ceiling, and drawings covered half the room. The left half of the room held a small twin sized bed with a few pillows and a dull pink blanket that was thrown askew as if its inhabitant simply got up and never made their bed. The right side contained a smaller bed that was sized to fit a small toddler with neatly folded light blue sheets and a small shirt laid out on top of it. Next to both beds were individual dressers, the left which looked incredibly disorganized and the right which was closed with no sign of overflowing clothes. The pair walked further into the room and Adora approached the smaller bed. She grabbed the shirt laid on the bed with a twinkle in her eye.

“Were you this small at one point?” she asked, nearly crying at the thought of a Catra so tiny and fragile. 

“I mean, probably. We all were, right? Even you were at some point.” Catra responded with practiced indifference. She turned away from her amazed girlfriend and moved towards the left side of the room to observe the drawings that were placed haphazardly around the wall. Most of them were stick figures with nondescript clothing and no identifying factors or a house with a tree. As she moved along the wall, one drawing in particular caught her eye. It was a drawing of 4 stick figures standing in front of a tree accompanied with a loopy scrawl at the bottom which read: “ _ My and my family. Papa, Dad, Sol, and I.”  _ As she continued to look at the drawing, with its yellowing paper and a fine layer of dust atop the rounded corners, she began to pick out some key features of the figures. One of the taller ones had long hair, the tallest had very fluffy ears, one of the shortest figures had on a blue cape and the smallest was sitting on the ground at the feet of the rest with hands outstretched above them. Catra assumed that the writing at the bottom was probably done by an adult who had been nearby while the drawing was being created. With the utmost care, Catra removed the pin that kept the drawing fastened to the wall and took the drawing down. 

“Are you going to keep that one?” Adora asked, having put down the baby clothes and now standing behind Catra. 

“Yeah.” Catra nodded as she gently placed the paper into the bag attached to her side. 

They moved out of the room and continued down the hallway. The further they went, the more they noticed signs of a struggle. Whoever had been fighting had clearly not been around for quite some time as the dust remained undisturbed, but it didn’t take a genius to figure that it likely had something to do with the invasion. They followed the path of askew paintings and toppled furniture past a bathroom and to the last door in the hallway. The door itself looked like it had been half thrown off its hinges and as they entered, they could see an indent in the wall where the doorknob had hit the wall behind it. This however was not the thing that drew their attention the most. 

At first, they noticed a distinct lack of dust floating through the air, then they noticed a breeze. Following the source of the wind, they noticed an open window under which sat an undisturbed skeleton. Both girls let out a short gasp and Catra quickly reached for Adora’s wrist as Adora’s other hand flew to cover her mouth. The skeleton itself was leaned up against a tall bookcase that sat next to the window and across the room from a bigger bed. They were dressed in a simple tank top with detailing at the collar and pants, and similarly to the other skeletons they had found, the only noticeable magicat feature that remained were the elongated canine fangs.

Catra felt her stomach drop to the floor. For all she had wondered about if her family had gotten out, some part of her still never expected to find their  _ bodies. _ Had she needed to make an educated guess regarding the identity of this person, she would have said it was likely her father Dante. He was wearing similar clothing to that which he had been dressed in in the hologram save for the long dried bloodstain which stained the side of the shirt where his hand rested. Catra found herself rooted to the spot. She could neither move closer to her father nor move away. If she left it would feel as though she was abandoning what she felt like was one of the only people who cared for her before Adora. It wasn’t until she felt a warm hand on her face that she realized Adora had been speaking.

“-can leave. You don’t have to do this right now, Catra.” Adora sounded like she was underwater, and distantly Catra realized that was likely because of the overwhelming sound of blood rushing through her ears. Next, she recognized that that would only be happening if her heart rate had sped up. Finally she realized that her heart had picked up because she had fallen to her knees and was beginning to hyperventilate. Drops hit her hands that gripped her knees tightly, and Catra briefly mused that perhaps it was melting snow that was falling in through the dilapidated roof before she realized that they were in fact tears falling from her face. Solid hands covered her own and Catra blinked through the tears in her eyes to see Adora crouched in front of her with her mouth moving. She could hear no sound, but the last shapes that her mouth made vaguely registered as  _ ‘Come here.’  _ and Catra felt herself being moved out of the room and back into the hallway. 

Adora rested her against the wall and slid down next to her to wrap her arms around Catra’s shoulders. As she came back to herself, Catra heard hushed whispers coming from Adora above her, reassuring her that she was okay and that she wouldn’t leave her, and after several minutes, her breathing slowed to an almost normal pace and Catra let her head drop to Adora’s neck. A creeping exhaustion weighed on Catra’s bones as it usually did after an anxiety attack like that and she moved her arms to hold Adora’s middle. After her tears dried, Catra moved her head to rest more comfortably on Adora’s shoulder where she could see her partner’s face. Adora looked back at her with a face that spoke only of love and understanding, none of the pity or harsh judgement that Catra had come to expect in her youth. It was a face that Catra also recognized to mean that Adora was waiting for her to initiate the conversation when she was ready.

Catra sighed, “I just wasn’t ready. I’m-” Catra stopped herself before declaring that she was sorry as she remembered a lesson from Perfuma.  _ “You shouldn’t apologize for feeling your feelings, and you certainly need not apologize for having an anxiety attack, Catra.”  _ She rubbed her eyes as Perfuma’s words echoed in her head. “It was just a lot. I didn’t expect to actually find someone.” 

Adora nodded in understanding, “I can go cover him with a blanket if you want. I’ll be really careful to not let it actually touch him so he’ll still be undisturbed, but that way you don’t have to see it again.” Adora offered, moving her hands up and down Catra’s back. In some ways, this just seemed like avoiding the problem to Catra, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to focus on getting what they came here for if everytime she turned around she saw the body of a loved one she never got the chance to know. It seemed like the best option.

Catra nodded weakly, and Adora stood from their embrace and returned to the room. Some shuffling of fabric could be heard from inside before Adora returned to the doorway. “Okay, everything’s all covered. You can come back in.” 

Catra braced herself against the wall and stood to walk to Adora. They entered the room together and Catra immediately sought out the figure under the window. Adora had taken the blanket from the bed across the room and draped it partly on top of a shelf of the bookshelves and the window and held it in place with a couple of books taken from the shelf. It was carefully arranged so that it didn’t actually disturb the likely very fragile skeleton. Catra gave Adora an appreciative look before continuing to look around the room. She had gotten a few feet into the room before Adora gently moved around her and back towards the window.

“There’s something you should probably see.” Catra looked up to where Adora stood next to the open window frame and she walked carefully towards her. She didn’t need Adora to tell her what to look at; years of Horde training made it easy for her so see signs of an escape. There was mud smeared across the window frame in the pattern of a small shoe. It would appear that anyone else who was in the house when it was attacked had escaped through this window. That is, except for Dante. 

“It looks like he got the others out. They got  _ you _ out.” Adora said after a few moments of silence. 

“Yeah, I guess he did.” Catra said as she ran her hands along the dried mud which flaked off under her touch. “Wonder where they ended up.” she said as she glanced back down at the sheet. Probably best not to dwell on it now. Catra moved back towards the bed and crouched to peer underneath it. Even in the dark she could see what looked like a small trap door hidden under the bed.

“Help me move this.” she said to Adora as she stood and moved to one end of the bed. They both knew that Adora was capable of moving the bed on her own but she still took her place opposite Catra and they both shifted the large bed to the center of the room. Alongside a couple blankets that had been shoved under the bed was the small door that Catra had seen. It looked like it would swing open upwards, and it was latched closed with a lock. Pulling out the paper once more, Adora set to work on opening the lock. It was swiftly popped open, and Adora gently opened the door to reveal a hole big enough for someone to crawl through and a ladder leading down into a dark room. With the light streaming through from the window, they were able to see a small room probably no bigger than could contain a couple of shelves and some boxes.

Catra descended the ladder first, following old war disciplines that she and Adora had figured out in the Horde. Catra went first so she could literally sniff out any unseen threats and Adora followed closely after, ready to leap ahead at her command. It had worked for them thus far and while they didn’t necessarily believe that they would need it in this cellar, some familiarity in a strange place couldn’t hurt. As Catra did an initial sweep of the room, Adora climbed down the ladder behind her. Having not sensed anything out of the ordinary, Catra set to looking closer at some of the boxes in front of her. Adora moved further into the room to tackle the second shelving unit and they both began to search through boxes. 

The first thing Catra began looking for was the box that Dante described in the hologram. He had said it would have her name on it, and it took a brief moment for Catra to remember that she wasn’t looking for the word ‘Catra’ but rather for ‘Sol.’ It wasn’t long before she spotted it on the top shelf. It was a simple wooden box with sharp lettering that spelled out  _ “Sol Fenire” _ , it sat next to another simple box that read  _ “Anjie Fenire.” _ Clearly it had been put there to keep out of reach of the children and any little hands that might damage it. Catra reached up towards it and realized that it sat about half a foot out of her reach and she took a moment to wonder how she ended up so short if her fathers had been so tall. She glanced around a box to look for Adora and found her crouched in front of a box holding small papers. She then decided that rather than ask Adora to grab it for her, she would just stand on the bottom shelf and grab them. She placed one foot on the slat of wood that formed the bottom shelf and put some pressure on it to make sure that it wouldn’t crumble under her weight and when it didn’t give any indication that it would falter, she stepped onto it fully. Catra first grabbed the box with Anjie’s name on it and placed it on a lower shelf before moving the one with her name onto the same shelf. She leaped off the shelf and back onto the floor before looking towards the boxes again.

Gently, she grabbed the one that was inscribed with her given name and slid open the top. Inside was a small bunch of dark blue fabric which she plucked up and set on the shelf. Underneath the fabric sat a pendant on a chain. The pendant itself was a soft light orange color and was surrounded in a fine golden wire woven in intricate shapes, and attached to the wire was a golden chain. She gingerly lifted the pendant from the box and set the box back down on the shelf.

“Adora..” she whispered, almost afraid to break the stunned silence she now found herself in. Adora’s head whipped up towards Catra and she quickly stood and walked next to Catra.

“Woah. Is that the one they left you?” Adora also whispered, looking at the shapes of the wire in wonder. 

“Yeah. It was in a box with Sol written on it.” The name hung strangely in Catra’s mouth. It was the name she had been born with and yet it was not the one she was raised with. It was not that she disliked either of her names, but both were given to her by people who loved her, even if one of them was Catra Applesauce MeowMeow. Some part of her vaguely recognized that she would have to deal with the issue of her name later. 

“Are you going to wear it? It’s yours.” Adora said, moving one hand to the small of Catra’s back. 

“Yeah, I think I will.” Catra responded, holding the pendant out towards Adora. “Help me?” she asked as she moved her hair out of the way. Adora unclasped the chain and rested it around Catra’s neck and refastened it in the back before Catra let her hair fall once more. It rested just above where her shirt dipped into her cleavage, right on her sternum. It was short enough that it likely wouldn’t get in the way if worst came to worst but long enough that she could still see it if she looked down. Catra turned back towards Adora whose hands came to rest on her shoulders. Adora gave her a wistful smile and said, “You look beautiful.” before placing a kiss on Catra’s forehead. 

Catra moved her attention back to the other box that had her sister’s name written across it. As gently as the first box, she opened it and moved the same fabric out and onto the shelf. The pendant in this box was similar to the one Catra now wore in length and wire designs, but that was where the similarities ended. Anjie’s pendant was a light blue and more round where Catra’s had been long and angular. It had the same intricate patterns woven into the wire and it hung on a silver chain the same length as Catra’s. Catra ran a thumb over the stone, lost somewhere deep in thought and returned the fabric and cover to the box. 

“I’ll keep it for her. Just in case.” Catra said quietly, eyes beginning to get misty again. Adora nodded and gently grabbed Catra’s free hand before smiling. 

“Come here. You’ll want to see this.” She said with a small giggle as she led Catra to the box she had been sorting through. As they approached the box, Catra noticed that the small papers Adora had been holding earlier had been photographs that were now strewn about the shelves and floor. 

“Look at this one.” Adora said, picking up a picture from a shelf and handing it to Catra. The picture showed a close up of a small baby with mismatched eyes and a wide smile. The child did not yet have the characteristic magicat teeth but there was no mistaking the small fluffy ears that poked out from behind bushy hair. Catra flipped the picture over to see an inscription that read:  _ ‘Sol Fenire born October 28th, 1157 AFO. 5.2 pounds, 14 inches.’  _

“Holy crap,” Adora whispered, “you were a tiny baby.” At one point in time, Catra might have taken that statement as a jab against her pride, but looking down at the picture she had to admit, she was a tiny baby. Maybe it was just typical of Magicats to have small babies.

“Yeah, that’s pretty small.” Catra said, turning the picture back over.

“So that means you’re..” Adora paused, counting the years in her head. “24 years old!” Without even looking up, Catra could feel Adora beaming at her as she shook her hands excitedly. 

“Ooh! This means we can properly celebrate your birthday now! I mean it’s still months away, sure, but how exciting!” Adora exclaimed.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Princess. We haven’t ‘properly’ celebrated for 24 years, we don’t need to jump the gun now.” Catra said, looking up at her partner with a soft smile so as to let her know she wasn’t actually upset about the whole ordeal.

Adora let out a small squeal of excitement, and they continued to look through the various pictures and boxes, moving a few pictures into Catra’s bag to keep on them and returning the rest to their boxes to come back for later. Eventually they were down to the last box that had rested next to the necklace boxes on the top shelf of the first shelving unit. So far they had found all variety of documents ranging from pictures to certificates of achievement from her father’s childhoods to other drawings done by Anjie. Expecting to find more of this, Adora pulled down the last box and they began to sort through it. It was filled with various files that were filled to the brim with papers. Catra pulled out the first file and opened it to find blank pages.

“What the hell?” She said out loud, to no one in particular as she continued to thumb through page after page of blank paper. Adora also looked confused, having pulled out her own file of seemingly blank papers. Ten more files in and they were surrounded by random sheets of paper. 

“I thought there was supposed to be a map somewhere.” Catra mumbled, slightly annoyed, as she reached for the last file. As if summoned by the mention of it alone, Catra opened the last file to a paper with several squiggly lines drawn on it.

“Oh,” she said, surprised. “I just had to complain a little.” Catra picked up the paper and handed it to Adora who immediately began looking it over for any identifying locations. 

“What was the point of all this then?” Adora asked, looking up from the map to Catra who just shrugged.

“Not sure. Maybe they wanted whoever was going through their stuff to give up before they found it. Not like anyone else knew it would be somewhere in here.” Adora seemed to briefly mull over the answer in her head before nodding and turning back to the map. Catra began to put the files back into the box and moved it to a lower shelf, not confident she could haul it back to the top without Adora. 

Eventually, Adora folded the map back up and placed it inside of Catra’s bag with the other items they were taking back with them, and the pair ascended the ladder. Upon returning to the room above, Catra noticed that the sky had begun to darken as the first night moon began its ascent into the sky. 

“We should get back to the others.” Adora suggested, grabbing Catra’s hand and leading them out of the house once more. Catra spared one last glance back over her shoulder towards the blanket that still lay draped over the bookshelf and made a silent promise to return to properly lay her father to rest. 

The pair wove their way once more through the streets of Halfmoon until they found themselves back at the castle entrance. Beyond the flashing lights emitting from inside that they would expect to come from Entrapta fiddling with a First One’s device, they also heard the faint sounds of music and a crowd. Sweeping their eyes across the still empty streets, Catra and Adora shared a confused look as they cautiously approached the towering building once more. As they got closer, Catra’s ears swiveled to pick up the faint sounds she had heard earlier which grew stronger as they approached and began to pick up on some irregularities in the noise. The voices that quietly chattered and talked all seemed to have slight distortions around them; a syllable would drag out here, someone would skip a word there, and it was not long before They realized they were listening to holograms. The girls stepped into the entrance of the room and were met with the sight of hundreds of holograms standing and dancing around each other. Every single one of them was a magicat. Peering through the false crowd, they noticed Bow and Entrapta watching the holograms with fascination before Bow looked in their direction and eagerly waved them over.

“Entrapta was able to access the rest of the files on the tower! It turns out that the citizens of Halfmoon recorded a whole bunch of their events!” Bow said as they approached, motioning towards the numerous holograms. Entrapta continued fiddling away with her computer, every so often glancing up to the holograms while speaking quietly into her recorder. They joined their friends in enraptured attention as the holograms formed several dance circles around the room as a band played an upbeat tune. The figures weaved around each other with practiced ease as they performed a casual sort of dance. Children bobbed in and out of the circles and around feet, chasing each other to their heart’s content. Catra thought she noticed a familiar short figure in a cape dart across the floor holding a small bundle, but her attention was drawn away by Entrapta.

Finally moving to acknowledge their newly returned friends, Entrapta stood beside them on her hair and began to speak, “Isn’t it fascinating? This recording goes on for hours, and this is just the end of it!” she said as the figures ended their dance and bowed to each other before freezing in place. 

“The magicats seemed to record all sorts of things!” Entrapta continued, traipsing back to the tower. “They recorded messages for their loved ones, kingdom celebrations, even nearby battles!” Catra looked at her in confusion, but Adora was the one who spoke first.

“Battles?” Adora asked, “What do you mean they recorded battles?” 

“Well, it seems that they recorded events that they deemed particularly important, and a battle would certainly count as one of those. If I’m right, and I’m 96% sure I am, that’s what this gentleman was doing here.” she finished, motioning towards the skeleton that Bow had gently laid down.

“They were recording a battle?” Catra asked hesitantly. 

“Most likely!” Entrapta exclaimed, now scrolling through a list of files on her computer. “The reach of this tower is incredible. It can record out to the walls of the town and project just as far! We could watch the battle happen in real time!” 

Not for the first time that day, the group hesitated. It was one thing to participate in a battle in the heat of the moment, another to witness the aftermath, and yet they were unsure they were going to be able to observe a battle happen as simple spectators. 

Bow was the one to break the stunned silence. “Maybe that can wait until another day. It looks like we’ve all seen enough for today.” he said, glancing at Catra and Adora, mentally noting the faint tear streaks running down Catra’s face. 

“Well, that’s fine. I’ll need a little more time to access it anyways, but I should be able to have it up and running by tomorrow!” 

Catra sighed and buried her face in her hands. Tomorrow. Tomorrow was enough time to try to collect herself before diving back into the fray of watching her own people get run down by the organization she grew up with. Given the events of the day, she had a vague idea of what to expect from the footage. 

Suddenly her nose began to twitch at the telltale signs of magic approaching. Her hair stood on end as Gmiller popped into the room in a shower of sparkles. Glimmer at least had the decency to look mildly surprised at the presence of the still frozen holograms.

“Oh! This looks… fun.” She said cautiously before looking up to meet the eyes of her friends. She glanced at their surroundings before landing on the shifted skeleton and allowing her jaw to drop ever so slightly in concern.

Bow waved his hands before simply stating, “Long story.” Glimmer nodded.

“Well, everyone ready to head home, or does anybody wanna stay in the creepy castle overnight.” glimmer asked, clapping her hands together once.

“I’ll stay in the creepy castle! I have work to do.” Entrapta said, raising one pigtail from her position seated on the ground.

“Entrapta, that’s probably not safe. Someone should at least stay with you overnight.” Bow said, looking as if he were running through a list of people in his mind.

“Oh well, if no one minds, Dak could probably come help. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.” Entrapta shrugged. She was clearly going to stay here regardless of whether Wrong Hordak were there or not. Years ago, Catra might have bristled at the thought of a clone coming into a place she considered important to her, but Dak had long since proven himself a weirdly comforting presence and a reliable friend so she was more than okay with him being here to assist Entrapta overnight. 

Glimmer gave a thoughtful look and rubbed the side of her face. “Yeah sure, I can go grab him, but once I’m back everyone else should be ready to leave.” She yawned. “I just got done with a meeting from another delegate and without Catra there, the meetings just seem to go on longer than usual.” 

Catra snickered to herself and said, “We’ll be ready, Sparkles.” 

Glimmer disappeared in a shower of glitter and the remaining members of the Best Friends Squad turned to gather their items. Not even 15 minutes later, Glimmer reappeared with Dak in tow; the latter of the two holding a tray of tiny cupcakes which Entrapta excitedly grabbed at as he walked to her side. The crew said their goodbyes to Entrapta and Dak and made Entrapta promise not to knock over the building in their absence before disappearing and reappearing at the entrance to Bright Moon. Catra was proud of herself, she only slightly felt like vomiting that time. She wasn’t sure she would ever be over it. The friends said goodnight to each other and went their separate ways to bedrooms, intending to fall asleep right away in preparation for the day tomorrow. 

\--

Catra had really intended to fall asleep and be done with it, but after tossing and turning for a few hours next to a snoring Adora, she decided to get out of bed rather than wake her love. She walked towards the desk in their room and grabbed the satchel she had been carrying that day to the flat surface. She pulled out the various pictures and drawings that they had collected throughout the day and laid them out across the desk, almost content to just look at them and ask more questions. She must have sat there for some time because she soon noticed the smooth wood underneath her head as warm hands gripped her shoulders. She raised her head and looked towards the owner of the hands and found Adora looking back at her with a soft smile. 

“Hey, Adora. Did I wake you up?” she mumbled sleepily, looking towards the clock on the wall which told her she had knocked out around 2 hours ago. 

“No, I just needed water, and you weren’t there when I woke up. I didn’t need to look far though.” She placed a soft kiss to Catra’s hair. “Come back to bed?” she asked gently.

“Yeah, okay.” Catra responded, leaving the papers on the desk to deal with in the morning and returning to the bed. As she lay her head back in the crook of Adora’s neck, Catra wasn’t sure she would ever be fully prepared to witness the promised downfall of her people. However, she reasoned, if she had this to come back to, she was sure she would find some way to cope. She knew she wasn’t alone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some extra information that might be fun to know:  
> \- in regards to Catra's Birth year, I had to make up a year system so 1157 'AFO' stands for 'After First Ones'  
> \- I imagine the holograms dancing kind of like the kingdom dance from Tangled but you can certainly imagine it however you want!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To avoid confusion: this chapter starts out in Anjie's pov and then moves back to Catra's. Also, Papa is Dante and Dad is Gale.  
> TW// for more descriptions of death and also active battle

A blast resounded from across the city and two men shared a knowing look.

_ The Horde was finally here. _

The entire citizenship had been ready for this day, and they were prepared to make their way to their sister city located far under the mountain range. All material possessions were to be left behind in favor of their natural agility, and their strongest would remain for a little while longer in an attempt to hold off the Horde long enough to get everyone out and perhaps stand a chance of driving them back outside the boundaries of their kingdom. Anyone with young children who depended on them were to leave immediately. 

No one was to return to the city until the Horde had met their end. No exceptions. 

A young girl stood with her fathers at the entrance to their house, ready to leave when another explosion sounded closer to their location. She looked down at her younger sister whom she held in her arms and checked that she was still asleep before looking back up at her fathers with a worried look. She wasn’t entirely sure what it meant when the adults had said that the Horde was coming, only that it was bad and it meant that they had to leave. One of the men noticed her expression and placed a gentle hand on her head. 

“It’ll be okay Anjie, we’ll be out before they get near us.” her Papa whispered as her other dad flitted out of their bedroom and towards the door and the other members of his family.

“It’s all locked up. Everything should be safe for now, it’s well hidden enough.” her dad said, tying his long hair up into the tight bun that he usually wore when he was about to do something that required him to move quick. He moved behind her and gathered her own hair into a ponytail at the base of her neck with a double knotted ribbon. 

“It’ll have to do.” her Papa said, reaching for the door. His hand was halfway to the doorknob when an alarm blared on the other side of the door. All of the sudden, Anjie felt someone pick her up and make a mad dash towards the other end of the house just in time for the door to slam into the wall that she had been standing nearby. The last thing she saw before they rounded the corner into her fathers’ room was 3 heavily armed soldiers entering the hallway and shouting commands at each other. As quietly as a pack of magicats could, they entered the room and her Papa set her down gently as her Dad latched the door and locked it quietly to the sound of the soldiers stomping through the house. She maintained a tight grip on her slumbering 1 year old sister who had begun to stir at the sounds of commotion. By the time she looked up she noticed her Papa had opened the window next to their bookshelf and was reaching for her again as the doorknob began to shake from the outside. 

Her fathers shared a worried but determined glance and her Papa leaned out the window to look for any other people. Once satisfied that no one was nearby, he grabbed Anjie and gently maneuvered her through the window and plopped her quietly onto the ground beneath him. She stood, clutching her sister tighter to her chest under her cape as she began to let out a soft yawn.

“It’ll be okay Sol, Papa said it would be okay.” she said, glancing down at the girl she was holding who now opened her eyes to peer back with the same but oppositely situated heterochromatic eyes. Anjie heard a slip and a soft thud next to her and looked up to see that her Dad had just come through the window but had turned to look back with a fear stricken expression as she heard the door of the bedroom swing open harshly. 

“Go!” her Papa yelled from inside. A sharp crackling sound emanated from inside the house and was accompanied by a bright flash of red light. Her Dad hardly hesitated before bunching up the back of her cape and pushing her forward and into the streets in front of their house. She desperately wanted to look backwards at her Dad, but she knew if she did then she would lose her footing on the cobblestone in front of her and trip and land on her sister who was still hidden under her cape. 

The pair darted between the streets before Anjie finally lost her patience and looked at her Dad with confusion, “What about Papa? We need to go back for him!” she cried softly, not wanting to alert any nearby soldiers. Her Dad looked down at her with a steeled but sad expression and just shook his head as a tear slipped down his face. She only somewhat knew what that meant. They had talked to her about the fact that everyone may not make it out of the city and that they wouldn’t be able to come back for them, but none of the permanence of not being able to see those people again really stuck in her young mind. She was instructed to do as she was told, hold onto her sister and don’t stop running even if her fathers’ pulled aside to stop any oncoming advances. She was really starting to hate the idea of her one remaining dad leaving her. 

They darted past a group of people who were hastily constructing a large structure made of furniture that was thrown onto the streets from nearby houses before she heard the crowd shrieking. She threw one last glance back to see living shadows rising over the nearly finished barricade.

-

Catra raced through the streets of Halfmoon after the projected Hologram of her sister and father. Entrapta had called early in the morning to let them know that she had successfully gotten the tower to let her access and project the final battle for Halfmoon and that they could come see it whenever they were ready. Needless to say, they hadn’t headed over right away despite Entrapta’s eagerness as none of them were particularly brimming with excitement at the prospect of observing a battle go down where they already knew many people died. Regardless, it was now midday and Catra had spent the last couple hours following holograms of her family around the city on their final day.

She rounded a corner onto the street that she and Adora had come down on their first visit to Halfmoon and watched as the running forms approached the barricade that stood imposing as ever in front of them. The pair glitched through the stack of furniture as other citizens continued to pile and Catra realized she would have to scale the barricade to keep up with them. In an attempt to leave the barricade itself undisturbed, she took a running leap at a nearby wall and bounded off of it effortlessly and landed over the barricade gracefully on the other side.

“Catra, wait up!” called Adora’s voice, several steps behind her. Catra had always been the faster of the pair but the adrenaline that fueled her mad dash through the streets had caused her to be a bit quicker than normal. Adora made it over the barricade just in time to watch alongside Catra in horror as familiar hologram shadows made their way over the barricade and engulfed several of the citizens nearby. In all her focus to follow her family members around, she had forgotten about the presence of one particular commander of the Horde.

Catra could feel every hair on her body stand on end as she watched the long gone but still far too real memory of electric shadows move through the streets and towards their position. Logically, they both knew that the writhing shapes they saw now posed no threat to them in real time, but that didn’t stop either girl from jumping out of the way as one made its way behind them to capture another hologram who ran out from behind a building. Catra’s mind was beginning down a path of red electricity not unlike the power her dear friend now held, shadows engulfing her small body,  _ suffocating, burning _ . 

A scream. 

She was pulled out of her spiral by the distant sound of a young girl screaming. She tore her eyes away from the rapidly growing shadows to focus once more on the retreating form of her sister. Except that she was no longer running. She had turned back the way she came and had let out a scream of horror at the sight in front of her. There on the ground laid Gale, legs trapped in pulsing shadows and lying front first on the ground. 

_ “Keep going! Find Lazuli’s family!” _ called the tinny hologram voice of her father. His hand was outreached towards Anjie and she let out a,  _ “No,no! Not you too!” _ as she rushed for his hand. Gale was suddenly drug backwards and towards the larger mass of shadows centered around the barricade before another dark tendril shot out towards Anjie’s legs. She let out a short yelp and jumped quickly away and began her run back towards the gate of the town.

_ “Anjie!” _ cried the voice of another young girl who was closer to the barricade. Catra and Adora ran after the once more sprinting figure of Anjie who was blinking rapidly to clear her eyes of tears. The pair looked up towards the other voice to see a girl they recognized from the last hologram they had seen to be Lazuli, Anjie’s friend. She was standing at the gate of the city, flickering in and out of existence as the hologram reached its limits, with her hand outstretched towards Anjie. 

Judging from their place next to Anjie’s projection, they couldn’t have been more than 20 feet away from the gate when another shadow hologram shot out and caught Anjie’s right ankle. Catra and Adora skidded to a halt as Anjie was lifted several feet in the air by her ankle as she thrashed around in an attempt to free herself. Distantly, Catra could hear Lazuli calling for her friend, but all her focus was now on the young girl who was held some distance above her. The cape Anjie had draped around her shoulders fell with the gravity and covered her face and revealed the other young girl she had been holding. They could hear rapid breaths as she was brought through the air quickly towards a slowly approaching figure. A dark mass of shadows slid across the ground to where Anjie was now held and solidified into the shape of a woman who had long since expired on her ability to physically torture the women who now stood in front of her.

The image of Shadow Weaver slid up close to Anjie as shadows and red electricity pulsated around the sisters, and although the voice was distorted through the hologram, there was no mistaking the cadence that rang through the air. 

_ “Insolent child! Did you think you would escape my reaches?” _ the voice rang, amplified through many layers of magic. They could hear Anjie let out a strained whimper that was muffled through a locked jaw as a result of the magic, but her grip on her sister remained tight. 

_ “Anjie! Anjie, no!” _ yelled Lazuli from the gate, standing just close enough to the edge that only her tail flickered at the edge. The shadows holding Anjie suspended in the air reared back, and Catra shut her eyes. She had seen enough family members die today.

A crackle of electricity ran through the air and the hologram flickered light that she could just barely see behind her hands which came to cover her eyes. Adora’s hand reached her shoulders by the time they heard a loud thud and the beginnings of a baby’s cries. Catra vaguely registered more yelling coming from the direction of the gate and a voice that urged Lazuli to move outside the perimeters of the city.

Outside of Catra’s vision, Shadow Weaver moved towards the crying child who now lay a few feet away from her sister on the ground. Although thinly concealed behind the mask, an air of disgust rolled off of the false woman as she directed her shadow minions towards her.

_ “Wait!” _ called a woman’s voice. A large scorpion like woman bounded over to where the baby was held in midair and stepped in between the sorceress and the child.

_ “This one’s just a baby. Couldn’t we let them live?”  _ Asked the white haired woman.

_ “It is a monster, and it deserves to die along with the rest of its kind!” _ growled Shadow Weaver as she loomed over the other woman.

_ “But couldn’t we make an exception this once? We could take them back to the Fright Zone and train them to be a cadet. I’ll take full responsibility for them.”  _ she said, moving to gently grab the young child from the shadow’s grasp. Shadow Weaver’s form grew to stand a several feet above the other woman before she growled, 

_ “Keep it out of my sight, or you will wish we had left it behind.” _

The other woman cradled the still screaming child in her pincers and took one last melancholy glance towards the other young girl who laid face down in the street before running out of sight.

After several minutes, Catra realized that the town was silent once more, and she slowly opened her eyes to see the projections once more frozen in place. The shadows had retreated back towards a tank that had blown through the far wall of the barricade and the form of Shadow Weaver was once more a blur of shadows rather than a dull mimicry of her former self. The bodies of the citizens of Halfmoon stayed still where they had fallen. Through the hologram, the pair could see that all of the holograms lined up with a skeleton who stayed patiently in the streets, except one. 

Anjie’s hologram lay hovering over an empty patch of cobblestone. 

“No, what?” Catra said quietly, moving to the fallen projection of her sister. “Where is she?” The holograms flickered in the streets, the shadows now removed from the fallen forms of various citizens. They could see Gale’s hologram lying on his side, hovering above a skeleton in deteriorated clothing. At least he’s still here, Catra thought absently before looking back to the empty street below her sister’s image. 

Panic began to bubble in Catra’s chest. “I said I would come back for them.” she mumbled. “Where is she? Did animals get her? Why would animals take her and no one else? What-” she was interrupted by a warm hand on her cheek. 

“Catra, it’s okay, we’ll find her eventually. We just have to look around. Maybe the recordings can show us, but for now I think it’s best if you take a break.” Adora said, rounding to block Catra’s view of the street. 

Numbly, Catra nodded and realized that the holograms must be frozen because Adora had told Entrapta to pause them through their earpieces while she panicked. Moving deliberately and within her field of vision, Adora grabbed one of Catra’s hands and began to move back towards the castle where Entrapta, Bow, and Dak waited for them.

As they made their way back inside the building, they noticed the projected and slumped form of a man with his hand on the control panel of the tower, presumably the one they had found upon their first visit. A bright beam of light shot out from the tower and into the sky through a hole in the ceiling that once likely had a window covering it and continued to project holograms throughout the town. Adora led Catra to a seated position at the wall next to the tower and took her place beside her as Catra brought her knees to her chest and dropped her head onto them. She felt Adora rub small circles on her back as she began to speak in hushed whispers to Bow. She flattened her ears down and attempted to block out the noise. Despite this, she could hear some snippets of conversation still.

“-not sure. There was no body-”

“-recording might show-”

Catra shivered at the thought of the recording continuing on any further, and then realized that Adora must have thought she was cold because she felt the familiar fabric of Adora’s red jacket cover her shoulders. She grabbed the edges of the jacket and pulled it tighter, willing herself to breathe in the soothing scent and calm her frantic heart. Bow walked away and back to Entrapta’s side and Adora leaned further into Catra’s side as she felt her eyelids grow heavy.

“M’tired, Adora.” Catra mumbled into her knees.

Adora hummed in acknowledgement, “You can take a nap, I’ll be here.” Catra nodded as best as she could from her position and leaned into Adora’s warmth and let her eyes slip closed again.

-

Catra hadn’t realized she had fallen asleep until she was roused by Entrapta’s excited chatter. She let out a small groan and raised her neck from its uncomfortable position, still on her knees. She rolled her neck around to work out the cramp, and noticed Adora still leaned into her side, arm draped across her shoulders, looking halfway between paying attention to whatever Entrapta was talking to Dak about and Catra’s currently waking state. 

“How long was I asleep?” Catra mumbled, noting that Adora’s attention was now fully focused on her. 

“Only, like, 45 minutes. How are you feeling?” Adora said with a comforting smile.

Images flashed through Catra’s mind. The familiar crackle of a stun baton cranked up to full power flashing from inside a house. A body being engulfed in shadows and pulled away from his daughters. A young girl trying desperately to keep a hold on her sister while dangling in the air. 

“M’fine.” she settled, not missing the flash of worry that crossed Adora’s face at the deflection. 

“You sure?” Adora asked, concern never leaving her face. The reality was that this is just another layer of bad experiences that Catra would have to learn to deal with. The reintroduction of Shadow Weaver’s powers into her life, albeit via holograms, was an entirely unwelcome experience but one she had predicted to see at some point today regardless due to the presence of the reports in the initial file. It was definitely acceptable that she had just met this long unknown family of hers just to go further in with the knowledge that they were already gone, nevermind the fact that her sister’s body was missing, and she might not even get the chance to bury her. 

Catra felt warm tears begin to streak down her face once more followed by Adora reaching for her face to wipe them away gently. She allowed herself to be pulled into her girlfriend’s chest as Adora removed the mostly fallen out braid she had been wearing to run her hands through Catra’s hair. 

“This sucks.” she mumbled into the fabric of Adora’s shirt. Adora let out a dry chuckle and Catra felt her nod against her head. A few minutes passed, and her eyes dried. She remained resting against Adora and let her keep running her hands through her bushy hair calmingly. 

“Do you want to know what they were talking about, or do you want me to wait until later to tell you?” Adora said quietly into her hair. Catra sighed.

“Just tell me now, better than making me nervous about it.” she responded, finally looking up to meet Adora’s eyes. Adora glanced back to where Entrapta sat atop her hair and then back to Catra.

“Entrapta says the recording went on for a couple more weeks after the Horde left before it cut out. I guess they left the same day since they basically secured the city in one day because mostly everyone fled. She thinks she can fast forward through it so we can see what happened to Anjie.” 

Catra somewhat perked up at the idea that she might get answers, but the happiness quickly faded at the idea that she might instead have to watch her sister get dragged out of town by animals or something of the like. She allowed herself a split second to wallow before remembering her silent promise to the citizens that were left behind that she would be back, and she would see them properly laid to rest. She looked up through the hole in the ceiling where she noticed the tower was no longer projecting, and the sky had moved well past mid day.

“When can we do that?” Catra asked, face still upturned towards the ceiling.

“Immediately!” Entrapta called from her position. “I can activate the tower right now, and we can get started!” Catra let out a heavy sigh and mentally prepared for the worst as she stood to walk back outside the castle. 

“We’ll signal you when we’re in place.” Adora said, also standing and putting in her earpiece once more. 

-

They walked back to the spot behind the barricade just as the holograms began to flicker back into place, still frozen. 

“You ready?” Adora asked, resting a hand on Catra’s shoulder.

Catra steeled her gaze ahead, “As I’ll ever be.” Adora raised her other hand to her ear and spoke to Entrapta.

“We’re in place, you can start the fast forward.” she said, and the holograms flickered and began to move rapidly. The Horde soldiers milled around the area, Shadow Weaver’s false shadow form exited back towards the center of town and eventually the soldiers picked up all their gear and walked back towards the center of town as well. For a while, there was no movement and no sound except Entrapta in their ears.

_ “We’re moving into the day after the battle.” _ Entrapta told them. The girls looked around, peeling their eyes for any obvious changes, but aside from the few remaining guards milling about in the distance, there was no movement. Catra glanced back to where Anjie’s projection was situated on the ground, still in the same position as she was left in when a high pitched noise caught her attention. If not for her advanced hearing, she might not have picked up on it.

Back towards the gate that served as many people’s exit to the city, a hologram flickered to life. At the increased speed of the fast forward, Catra saw the image of a young magicat girl enter the city, followed quickly by the image of a teenage magicat close behind her. 

“Entrapta, slow it down!” Catra called into her earpiece, and the holograms resumed their original speed. Catra made her way quickly to the new faces, tugging Adora along behind her who now noticed the new people. As they got closer, Catra finally placed the younger girl’s face. She recognized her to be Anjie’s friend Lazuli who had called to her when she attempted to flee the city. 

The two approaching figures moved their eyes around rapidly as if looking for threats and very nearly jumped behind a building at the sound of heavy footsteps nearby. Finally, they made their way to the fallen form of Anjie and the older of the two reached a hand down to her neck. They let out a gasp before carefully grabbing Anjie’s arms and shifting her to piggyback on their back.

_ “C’mon, it’s a miracle she lasted this long. She needs help. Now.” _ The older magicat said.

_ “What about Sol? She was carrying her when we left.”  _ Lazuli responded, looking around once more for any sign of the baby. The older one shook their head.

_ “If she’s not nearby then she’s probably dead as well; the Horde doesn’t leave survivors if they can help it, and we don’t have time. We have to get back before the others notice we’re gone. We’re already going to be in so much trouble for abandoning camp and coming back here, but we’ll be in worse trouble if the Horde catches us out in the open like this!”  _ said the older teen, readjusting Anjie’s drooping form on their back.

_ “Now let’s go, she needed medical attention, like, yesterday.” _ Lazuli gave a determined nod and the pair headed back towards the exit of the city with a mumbled  _ “We’ll be lucky if any of us make it out of this alive.” _ from the older magicat. They ran and flickered out of existence when they reached the gate. The recording continued to play out as soldiers marched past the barricade, narrowly avoiding the spot where the former citizens once stood.

“Entrapta you can pause it again.” Adora said, and the holograms froze and began to flicker in place. 

“She made it out.” Catra said incredulously. She stood in shocked silence for a moment before the information fully set in. “She was still alive, and she made it out.” she continued, a grin beginning to spread across her face. 

“Yeah, she did.” Adora said, still looking at the spot where the trio had vanished. Catra let out a loud whoop that scared some birds off of a nearby tree, and she threw her arms around Adora’s shoulders so quick that Adora had to grab her torso and spin them around to keep from falling. Both girls laughed so freely that to someone unaware of the carnage surrounding them, it may have been considered carefree. 

Catra’s head raced with possibilities. Her sister could have succumbed to her injuries soon after being taken out of the city and perhaps this celebration would seem inappropriate in the future, but her sister also could have survived with the aid of Lazuli and the other teenager and made it back to the rest of the citizens and continued her journey to the sister city.

She wasn’t intentionally left behind.

The longer she pondered the possibilities, the more she found that she worried less about the anticipation of learning the truth. Whatever happened next, her sister made it out alive, she could still be alive. If not, there was still the lead of the sister city and a whole population of people she never knew about. All in all, it was more than they had a month ago, and that was enough for the moment. She finally settled in Adora’s arms before letting out a happy high pitched noise that she would deny making until the end of her days and grabbed Adora’s hand to run back to the castle to deliver the good news to their waiting friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 7: aka Shadow weaver's A+ kidnapping techniques  
> Surprise! Her sister is still alive! (she wasn't supposed to be but like 2 people said they hoped she would be alive and it ended up being a better idea than what I had planned so I changed it lol so you can thank someone in the comments for that)  
> Thank you for all the comments, especially the ones from the people who have commented before! They motivate me to finish this story!!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't re read back through this so let's hope I didn't make any mistakes!  
> I think the goal is a couple more chapters after this one and then maybe an epilogue :)

To put it lightly, Catra was frustrated. They had been back in Bright moon for a week now after finishing most of their business in Halfmoon. With the help of Bow’s fathers, they had laid the remaining citizens, including Catra’s fathers, to rest. A large library had been found in the city and while there was no doubt the archeologists were itching to get their hands on information about the highly secretive society, Catra had pointed out that whatever was left of them might not want just anyone snooping around through their information, and so, they respectfully held off. Catra had taken the liberty of searching for some information regarding burial traditions within the Magicat culture since it seemed to be something taken very seriously outside the Fright Zone and had done her best to follow the instructions she had gathered from the few books she collected. There hadn’t seemed to be anything of a cemetery within the town and so they had carefully moved each skeleton to the woods just outside the town. 

Some part of her didn’t want anyone else to handle her family’s bodies and so Catra studied the way George and Lance worked and did her best to imitate them, not missing the gleam in their eyes at her careful observation. They had enlisted the help of Entrapta’s machines to dig holes, and she had personally placed her fathers within the same plot, as it was said that lifelong couples often were. After the fact, they had returned to Brightmoon, bringing with them the documents that Catra and Adora had gathered on their trip to the house, and had begun preparations to find the lost second city. 

And so we return to the original point, Catra was frustrated. They had been at this for almost a week and they had yet to find any indication that this sister city even really existed outside of the things that holograms had told them, and they were no closer to finding out where the rest of the citizens had fled to than they were a month ago when they hadn’t even known that they existed. It had almost seemed like every time they made a scouting mission, something had called for their attention and made them return to home base to deal with it. Minor natural disasters that required She-Ra for cleanup, rogue Horde bots that somehow were still active after two years even though they were sure they had deactivated them all, an official from some town or another was making a ruckus and Glimmer needed Catra’s ‘scary face’ to make them settle down. One thing after another pulled them further and further away from the location on the map they had discovered in the basement and out of the Whispering Woods towards Bright Moon.

Offhandedly, Catra had eventually brought this up in the war room during the lull between meetings to Glimmer and how she felt that they were simply doomed to never find this city, and she would just have to live with the knowledge that her sister might be alive out there. It was then that Glimmer revealed what was likely the source of her problems.

The Whispering Woods themselves.

“The woods,” she explained, “have a tendency to keep people from things they’re not ready to see yet or bring them towards things that will lead to change, like they did with Adora and the sword. They drew her to them so they could put She-Ra into the world again.” 

“That doesn’t make any sense though.” Catra countered. “Why would they let us find Halfmoon so easily after all this talk that it was impossible to find just to not let us follow through on what we found?”

Glimmer simply shrugged and answered vaguely, “Maybe the woods think you’re not ready. Maybe that’s all you were meant to find, or maybe we’re missing something?”

“I can’t imagine what. It’s like we get to the same spot every time and then something comes up that needs our attention.” Catra mumbled, crossing her arms. Glimmer gave a supportive smile and another shrug. 

“Maybe they’re trying to tell you to hold off for a bit. I mean, we’re supposed to head back into space soon, and that’s exactly why we’ve been so swamped with work, because we have to finish everything before we take off and my dad can take over.” She laid a reassuring hand on Catra’s shoulder as officials walked in for their next meeting. 

“It’s your call.” she concluded, sitting down at the head of the table and beginning the meeting. 

Catra ended up talking it out with Adora since she was the one who had been making the trips with her and subsequently ended up being half of the reasoning behind their calls back to Brightmoon. They agreed that they would make at least one more attempt at finding the city before they would put the project on hold to fully focus on their space mission. 

The pair awoke that next day after having told Glimmer that they would be out for the day on a last ditch attempt scouting mission and to not contact them unless absolutely necessary. They were apprehensive to say the least, considering the dozens of failed trips into the woods they had previously gone on and were half expecting this trip to end up similarly. Nevertheless, they got ready for their excursion, bid farewell to friends and animal companions alike and headed into the woods again. 

They had been walking for around 2 hours, and they would soon be approaching the clearing that typically marked an interruption to their excursion. The clearing itself was to the east and about 30 miles and a full day’s trip away from Halfmoon. There had been no mention of the actual distance they would have to cover when they searched for the city but according to the map which Adora had been studying in between preparing for their mission and helping around the planet, it was a good distance away from Brightmoon itself and more than likely a few days away from Halfmoon. Close but not inaccessible or hard to reach in the case of emergency. 

They entered the clearing with bated breath, waiting for and almost daring something to interrupt their trip but were met with silence. The pair looked at each other curiously and walked farther into the clearing. 

“Point of no return, much?” Adora said, cautiously. 

“Don’t jinx it.” Catra responded, still looking around for some indication of a path through. 

They had made it about halfway through the clearing when a rustling off near the trees caused them to halt.

“Oh for the love of-” Catra started, beginning interrupted by a rushing purple form darting directly in front of Adora.

“Mara, dearie!” called Madame Razz. Catra gave Adora a look that read as,  _ You can’t be serious  _ and Adora returned in kind with,  _ I didn’t cause this! _ They looked back and forth between each other and Razz as she flitted about in the clearing before Catra brought her hands to her face.

“Okay, that’s it. We’re never gonna find this city, this plan is doomed to fail because the woods just hate us or something.” she said, exasperated.

“But dearie, you’ve already been to New Halfmoon! You should know by now where it is by now. Madame Razz has shown you many times.” Razz said, moving between taking Catra’s hands and running back to the trees. 

“Wait- New Halfmoon? Razz what are you talking about?” Adora called, grabbing Catra’s hand before taking off after Razz into the woods. They trailed after the woman, nearly losing her multiple times before they came to her hut where she stood outside sweeping the ground. The pair took a second to catch their breath, they were physically fit enough but sometimes Razz seemed as if she were riding waves of magic rather than actually walking. 

“Razz,” Adora called, walking up to the old woman, “what did you say about New Halfmoon? What do you mean you’ve taken us there before?” 

“Eh? You’ll have to speak up, dearie. You know my eyesight isn’t what it used to be.” Razz responded, moving her glasses further up her nose to look at Adora. Razz studied Adora’s face for a moment as if looking for something before her gaze moved to Catra who looked just as annoyed as she had when Razz had initially burst out from the trees.

“Oh! Catra, dearie! Are you here for our visit to New Halfmoon? It’s been so long since we went, I’m sure they’ll be needing pie soon.” Razz said, clapping her hands together as her broom continued to sweep behind her before moving into her hut. 

“We’ve been there before?” Catra asks, confused.

“I mean, like, no right? But with the way that Razz is with time it must be someplace you visit a lot in the future. Maybe she’s our way in?” Adora says, holding the curtain open for Catra to enter the hut. They entered the hut and found Razz in the process of making a pie seemingly filled with the various berries that populated the woods around her space. She shoved the dish into the clay oven and snapped her fingers that caused a fire to burst to life in response within the oven. 

Cautiously, Catra approached the old woman, still standing a safe distance away from her constant movements and asked, “Are we supposed to go there today?”

“Oh, yes! You know you have never been this forgetful, dearie. Where is Finn? You usually bring them with you on these trips!”

“Who?” Adora asked from the corner.

“Oh, nevermind. Not time yet.” Razz mumbled to herself as she pulled the pie out of the oven. Somehow it had finished cooking within the few moments they were talking. She quickly wrapped the pie in a towel and placed it in a basket before running out the front of the hut again. They let out matching groans and ran out after Razz, tracking her into the forest until they caught up. They followed razz for a good distance before she stopped at the base of a mountain. Rocky cliffs crawled upwards towards the clouds and the trees slowly tapered off until the ground was nothing but rock in which they could not grow. Razz flitted around the area mumbling to herself.

“Uh, Razz?” Adora started before being cut off by a drawn out groan from Catra.

“Why did we think that Razz of all people would give us a straight answer?” Catra asked, fully out of patience now. At this point, Razz seemed to realize something and grabbed Catra’s hand.

“Hey! What are you-” Catra exclaimed as Razz pulled her to a spot in the rock and placed her hand upon it. There was a deep rumbling noise as rocks fell away to reveal a narrow passageway leading directly into the heart of the mountain. Catra and Adora looked on in shock as Razz made a happy noise and continued her trek into the passageway. They ran after Razz who, despite the somewhat confined space, had made impressive distance down the tunnel. They walked for what seemed like 10 minutes, narrowly avoiding bumping their heads on the low hanging rocks before emerging into a dimly lit but greatly expansive cavern.

Razz hobbled along without a care as Catra and Adora emerged into the space before a grand wall with a large set of gates to match. Lights that could have been rocks twinkled on the ceiling of the massive cave as little orbs of light that lit up the whole cavern danced alongside them. Moving their eyes back to the wall, they noticed the stark contrast of the smooth white stone with blue embellishments to the somewhat dank walls of the cave and the pairs of guards that milled around the top. 

Magicat guards. 

By the time they came back to their senses, Razz had made her way over to the gate. They darted after her, not wanting to lose their one familiar person in the wake of this discovery. As they approached they heard her conversing with one of the guards.

A stocky Magicat man in heavy leather armor stood facing Razz with a gentle smile on his face. “We weren’t expecting you so soon, Razz-” he started, stopping upon noticing the pair approaching behind her. He raised the spear he was holding to point at them, “Razz! You can’t bring visitors, you know that!” he began again, pausing once more at the sight of Catra. Before either of them could hope to respond, he dropped his weapon back to his side and looked at her with a panicked look.

“How did you get out without us noticing? What’s your name? You know no one is supposed to leave the city!” he exclaimed as he started to move towards her. 

“Woah, hey!” Catra began, taking a small step back from the approaching man. Adora took a step in front of her, arms outstretched, and blocked the man’s path and chose to look at him directly in the eye from where he stood a good couple inches shorter than her. The man visibly gulped before trying to move around her again before being interrupted by Catra.

“I’m not even from here!” Catra finally said, stopping the man in his tracks. He looked at her confused. 

“But, you’re-” 

“Yeah, I’m aware.” Catra said with a roll of her eyes as she pulled their map out of her bag. “We were trying to follow this. We found it in Halfmoon after tracking down the city.” she said, holding up the map to where the guard could see it. He managed to look more confused before she sighed and continued.

“I was taken from Halfmoon as a baby by the Horde. This is the first I’ve heard of it in 24 years, and I was hoping to find some answers here.” she finished, moving to stand beside Adora once more. 

“This is-” he started, looking like he was racking his own brain for answers. “Stay here.” he said as he moved to another guard who quickly ran inside of the wall and disappeared. The first guard returned to them but stopped to pick up Razz’s pie off the ground. Only then did they realize that Razz had disappeared again, likely down the tunnel back towards the woods. They shrugged at each other before the man spoke.

“A transport is being arranged for you to speak to someone who can help you. Outsiders are not typically welcome, but considering your history, they will have to make an exception.” he said with finality as a self driven carriage appeared from around the expanse of the wall. He guided them to sit inside the heavily curtained box and shut the door behind them. 

Inside the box of the carriage, there were similar but smaller floating balls of light that hovered around the top and dimly lit the velvety inside. A loud creak was heard from outside the box which they could only assume was the large gates opening as the carriage lurched and began to move. Another loud clunk was heard as the gates closed behind them. From the outside of the box, they had noticed that there were indeed windows in this carriage but upon entry, noticed that there was dense velvety fabric covering every inch of the glass and obscuring their vision to the outside world. 

“They must really like their privacy.” Adora said, pulling slightly at the curtains. A wide grin suddenly split her face as she looked at Catra.

“We did it! We found the city! Catra we’re here!” Adora said, taking Catra’s hands in hers and shaking them with excitement. Catra spared a short chuckle at her partner’s antics before her ears swiveled to the door of the box. When they had approached Halfmoon, the city had been dead, both figuratively and literally. But now, being taken through the streets of New Halfmoon, there were signs of life everywhere. Even from within the confines of the box, Catra could hear the distant sounds of children playing and adults conducting their day-to-day business. The city was, without a doubt, alive, and the thought nearly brought tears to her eyes. 

Within 5 minutes, they were brought to a stop and ushered quickly out of the carriage and into a door by the same guard who had disappeared behind the wall earlier. They were led through expansive halls until they reached a doorway which opened to a simple but large room with two couches and a table sitting in the middle. They entered the room and the guard spoke.

“Wait here. Someone will be here to talk shortly.” he stated simply before shutting the door behind them. They walked to the center of the room and Catra took a seat on one of the couches as Adora stood looking around them in curiosity. The room was about the size of their own room at Bright Moon but decorated in more light blues as opposed to the bright pinks and purples of Glimmer’s castle. A few minutes passed and Adora was satisfied with her judgement of the room and took a seat next to Catra to wait. 15 more minutes passed before the pair heard shuffling coming from outside the door. 

The door opened to reveal a magicat woman dressed in a fine tunic with detailed embroidery along the hem. Her hair was pulled into what was probably once a neat ponytail but now served more to keep the majority of the hair out of her face. She looked scrupulously between the two and walked to the couch opposite them before setting a short stack of papers on the table and taking a seat in front of them. 

“I am First Council Chairman Valrae, and I am here to assist you in your task. I understand that you” she motioned to Catra, “were taken from the capital city of Old Halfmoon during the Horde raid 23 years ago? Am I correct?” she said, flipping through her file.

Catra gave a short nod. “Yes, to my understanding, I was the only one taken.” she said as she retrieved the Horde file from her bag and presented it to the woman. She gave it a curious glance before setting her own papers down and taking the file from Catra.

“The reports there say that the only one taken was a baby, and seeing as we watched them do it through the recording on the First One’s tower, we know it was me.” Catra continued. The woman gave an almost surprised look at the mention of the tower before shaking her head slightly and looking back down at the files. 

“And how exactly did you come to find New Halfmoon, might I ask?” asked Valrae.

“We found this in the basement of the house that my family lived in.” Catra said, once again pulling out the map to New Halfmoon. The woman’s eyes went wide as she took the map from Catra. She scanned it for a brief moment before looking back up at Catra.

“And what is your name, dear?” she asked.

“Well, uh, I go by Catra now, but the name my parents gave me was Sol Fenire.” Catra stated with a shrug.

“And what would you prefer to be called?” Valrae responded with a tilt of her head.

“Just Catra for now is fine.” Catra said. She had had a conversation with the entire squad about her name and had eventually come to the conclusion that Catra would be used for them and if she had any remaining family left, they would likely call her Sol because that was what they knew her by. 

“I understand, excuse me for a moment.” Valrae said, standing from her spot, collecting her papers and heading for the door. 

“I will return momentarily. Please, make yourselves comfortable.” She said before closing the door once more. 

“You know,” Adora said after the door closed, “something tells me they really don’t like visitors.”

“Ya think?” Catra responded with a laugh. A few more minutes passed as they sat alone in the room before there was a soft knock on the door. The door opened and Valrae stepped back inside followed by another, far more regal looking, magicat. The other person was dressed in the same light blues of the surrounding architecture and across their chest was the image of a third quarter moon accompanied by an assortment of small stars.

“This is their royal highness, Mankala Yetvatome of New Halfmoon. Your highness, this is our lost sister, Catra.” Valrae motioned towards Catra.  _ Finally putting all this Royal Advisor training to use. _ Catra thought as she bowed to the monarch. Out of her peripherals, she saw Adora mimic her. 

“Is this your bodyguard?” said the monarch, gesturing towards Adora. Catra snickered a little as Adora quietly mumbled, “I mean, kind of.” For a moment, Catra considered saying yes solely for the purpose of the joke but decided that the inevitably ensuing confusion would not be worth it.

“No, this is my partner, Adora.” Catra said, moving to hold Adora’s hand and lift it up slightly. “Also sometimes, you know, She-Ra.” Both officials' eyebrows shot to the ceiling, and Catra chuckled inwardly. That was among one of her favorite reactions to get when it was revealed that Adora was She-Ra. To their credit, Mankala recovered much faster than Valrae and they settled into a well practiced face of polite neutrality.

“I see.” they began, “Well then, might I officially welcome you to the kingdom of New Halfmoon. Allow me to introduce you to our quaint city.” They motioned towards the door which opened to allow them through. They followed the monarch through the halls of the building and onto a balcony that overlooked the city.

Quaint was an understatement.

The city spanned the entire cavern space. In the distance, there were houses set up atop short cliffs within the walls and a great sprawling residential district reached out in front of them. Off to the right, and wrapping around the side of what they now knew was the castle and out of sight, was a market sector that was bustling with people. Now that they could see, they noticed that the entire city was filled with people, all magicats, who were milling about near homes or businesses. Everything was lit up by the floating balls of light that reached the top of the cavern. They were pulled from their awe by the voice of Mankala.

“I must apologize for the state of your upbringing, Catra. We were quite sure that if the Horde ever found us that they would take no survivors.” they grimaced, “This was the case in many of our other cities.”

“There were other cities?” Catra said with a surprised look.

“Oh yes, we were once very well hidden by the Whispering Woods, but upon the arrival of the Horde, the woods were dying and no longer had the power to shield us. This is why the Horde was able to find us in Old Halfmoon. We pulled all of our remaining citizens back here where they would be safe until the war was over.”

“But the war’s been over for two years, Why haven’t you returned to your cities?” Adora asked, looking curiously at the underground city and remembering Catra’s inherent distrust of spaces where she was limited by a ceiling. 

“We very nearly had, but we have seen far too many rogue Horde bots or clone attacks over the past two years for me to feel safe allowing my people back on the surface.” Catra winced at the mention of clone attacks; those didn’t bring back good memories even on a good day. 

“That’s understandable.” she said. “To be fair,” Catra started, looking at Adora, “not all of his clones are as willing to assimilate into Etherian civilization as Dak was.” Mankala raised an eyebrow at this. 

“You have experience working with the clones?” they asked. Catra’s hand instinctively came to cover her neck.

“You could say that.” she said uncomfortably. Their face changed to an understanding look.

“I see. My apologies, I was not aware that you had been chipped during the invasion.” they said, turning back to gaze upon the city. “Luckily, none of the citizens here were subject to that pain, and I am saddened to see that it still affected one of our own.” they finished with a solemn expression, looking back at Catra. She did her best to push any thoughts of the hivemind from her brain and instead focus on the conversation at hand. 

“Yeah, that was… not the best experience of my life, but that’s not specifically what I was talking about.” she continued.

“Oh?” Mankala asked, “Go on.”

“More recently, I’ve been working with Queen Glimmer of Brightmoon as her Royal Advisor. The princess alliance has been working these past two years to finally take control of the remaining Horde allegiates, and we’re fairly sure we’ve got all of them under control. There are a couple we’re keeping an eye on, but in an attempt to give them the benefit of the doubt, they’re being largely left alone aside from surveillance.” 

“Queen Glimmer, she is a friend of yours?” Mankala asks.

“One of the closest, yes.” Catra responds, not missing the proud twinkle in Adora’s eyes. 

“I see. It is good to know she has gained your trust; that is a valuable thing.” they nodded. “I apologize for switching topics so abruptly, but am I wrong to assume you did not simply come to New Halfmoon with the intention of securing an alliance with the kingdom of Bright Moon?” 

“You’re not wrong, although Glimmer had mentioned bringing that up at some point when we did find you.” Catra offered as the monarch chuckled politely. “No, I came because I have reason to believe that some of my family made it out of Old Halfmoon after the attack. I know my Fathers were killed, but the recordings on the First One’s tower showed that my sister survived and was taken out of the city by some other people; I assume they were friends of hers.” Although their face remained neutral, Catra could see a spark of excitement in their eyes, most likely at the prospect of reuniting a long lost family. 

“And what was her name?” Mankala asked, Valrae behind them already ready to write it down. 

“Anjie Fenire. She seemed to be injured in the battle so I’m not entirely sure she made it all the way here, but it’s worth a try at least.” Catra said, slightly discouraged even as she watched the numerous citizens mill about the city. She had never seen so many people who looked like her. 

“We will make an announcement, I assure you. If she is here, we will find her. For now, why don’t you join us for dinner?” Mankala assured, gesturing back towards the inside of the castle. 

Simply put, dinner was amazing. After leaving the Horde, she had been introduced to so many kinds of new foods that the sheer amount of options had been overwhelming, but even now, as she grew used to and learned about the different choices in Bright Moon, she was presented with things she still had yet to see. Both Catra and Adora were excited to try the new food, but it was clear that Catra enjoyed it the most. Each dish seemed to be catered to the natural tastes of the populace of Magicats. For her part, Adora was just happy to see Catra so excited. 

They got on surprisingly well with the reigning monarch of New Halfmoon as they recounted various stories ranging from the defeat of Horde Prime to interactions with the princess alliance. Stories about their time spent apart were carefully avoided. By the time the meal and conversation had finished, it was well past the time that it would be reasonable for them to head back to Bright Moon and so they were given accommodations in the castle for the night. Once settled, Adora had tried to reach Glimmer on the tracker pad to update her about the situation but was unable to get a solid connection underground. Instead they settled to send her a message first thing in the morning when they exited the cave. They left the next morning with a proposal on behalf of the kingdom of Halfmoon for the kingdom of Bright Moon for an alliance to help Halfmoon reintegrate into the reformed surface society. 

-

A week had passed since their return from New Halfmoon and Catra had been put in charge of dealing with incoming messages from and setting up meetings with the delegates from New Halfmoon as she had already gained their trust. They had been in near constant contact from the moment they had been told that the kingdom of Bright Moon had agreed to the alliance and she was in the process of setting up a meeting between the ruling parties of each kingdom to make it official. Their main request was that the location of their underground city be kept a secret for the time being from all except Catra and Adora since they had already visited; however, they added, given that the alliance goes well, more may be welcome in due time. Glimmer had agreed almost immediately simply out of excitement for her friend before Catra reminded her that she should probably actually read the legally binding terms before signing off on them. 

Catra awoke one morning, ready to get to work and finish her remaining tasks before their space mission and the meeting with Halfmoon. As she had been lately, she awoke before Adora, again signaling to her that she was up before she strictly needed to be and rolled over to grab her tracker pad next to the bed. She scrolled through the various messages that had accumulated in her sleep. Glimmer saying that a meeting was cancelled after lunch. Glimmer complaining about a stuffy official. Glimmer asking why Melog was wandering the halls. A follow up with a ‘nevermind, they caught a bird, mystery solved.’ Catra chuckled at the last one before reaching the final message. 

Some time ago she had asked Entrapta to code her tracker pad to reroute all her messages from incoming delegates directly to her so she could know what she was getting into that day before having to leave her bed. She reached the last message and the notification let her know that it was a work related message incoming from Halfmoon but nothing more as privacy still needed to be protected. She flicked open the message and read through it. Initially she had been confused since there hadn’t needed to be any further communication regarding the future alliance meeting since a date had already been set and agreed upon, but she realized why this sudden communication was necessary as she read through.

_ To Royal Advisor Catra, _

_ This communication is to inform you on an update to your request regarding the location of an Anjie Fenire. Anjie Fenire has responded to our announcement and is alive and well in New Halfmoon. As citizens of New Halfmoon are still prohibited from leaving the confines of the city until the Bright Moon alliance has been officiated, she will not be able to meet with you until this has happened. After the signing of this alliance, the government of New Halfmoon would be more than willing to assist you in setting up a meeting. We look forward to seeing you at the alliance meeting this Thursday. _

_ Best regards, _

_ First Council Chairman Valrae _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes I absolutely did casually namedrop Finn bc they're canon to me.  
> Shoutout to CyberWolf_1013 for coming up with the name New Halfmoon b/c I was struggling trying to think of a name when that was right in front of me lol  
> Thank you for your continued support, the comments make my day :)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have... absolutely no excuses as to why this chapter ended up being as long as it did. This chapter alone ended up being 10,771 words so I hope yall enjoy it. I considered breaking it into two chapters but it felt wrong to split it. It hasn't been reread or edited so please forgive any random mistakes (i didn't want to reread 10,000 words .-.)

Catra sat in an empty room in Bright Moon castle. She was anxiously picking at her nails and bouncing her leg rapidly from her seated position. Three officials had ventured down from New Halfmoon a few days ago and met with Glimmer to finalize the terms of their alliance and it had nearly been a spectacle to the citizens of Bright Moon. The only magicats that most of them had ever met was Catra herself, and due to Catra’s unpredictable nature, they had no idea how to interact with these new people. Of all the meetings Catra had ever had to deal with, this was the one she was most excited to be through with. Other meetings were boring enough that she was excited for them to end because it meant she could do something else, but this one was different because when it was over, the officials would return to Halfmoon to retrieve her sister. 

They claimed that a part of the purpose for their visit was to determine whether the surface was truly safe enough for them to allow a citizen to venture out into, and they had seemed satisfied enough with their judgement and told them they would return in a few days time with Anjie in tow. The most difficult part was getting information out of them. Generally, they seemed to be a very secretive people, and even though it seemed like they had told Catra more information than they had told anyone else, there were still some details lacking. Things like: How was Anjie doing? What did she know of Catra’s past? How would she react now that she knew her entire family  _ wasn’t _ dead? To be fair, these were all questions that couldn’t really be answered unless they knew her personally which it was unlikely that any of the officials did. 

Regardless, Catra sat alone in an empty meeting room. She was all too aware of the magicats’ tendencies to be exactly on time and she had been sitting in this room for the past half hour, knowing full well that they wouldn’t be here for another twenty minutes and nearly hitting herself upside the head for not bringing something to pass the time. Stars knows she has enough paperwork to keep her busy for weeks regarding the space mission alone. She had spent enough time in this room already to have gone through her routine of wondering if her sister would hate her and had had enough time to pull herself out of it before she heard the door creak open slightly. At first her eyes whipped up to the clock and noted that there was still 10 minutes before she was expecting anyone so it meant that whoever had opened the door was likely not the person she was anxious to see.

Melog bounded to stand in front of her seated form and meowed insistently. 

_ “The Queen needs you. Something has gone wrong.” _ they spoke.

“Now? She knows I’m supposed to be here when the people from Halfmoon show up.”  _ When my sister shows up, _ she added as an afterthought.

_ “She held off on retrieving you as long as she could. She is… not cut out for military command.” _

“Military command? Why did she need to command troops?” Catra asked, standing from her spot and already heading towards the door. 

_ “I am unaware of the full scale of the situation. I was simply asked to find you.” _ Melog responded as they both began to run towards the war room. They burst through the door to find Glimmer standing at the head of the table which was displaying blinking holograms scattered throughout the map.

“Oh, thank the stars. You know, I hired you for a reason and it’s because I don’t actually know how to organize battle plans. Great at diplomacy! Not so great at-”

“Sparkles, what’s happening?” Catra interrupted. 

“Right! You know that rogue faction of clones off the coast of Salineas that we’ve been keeping an eye on for, like, months now? They finally got their shit together and they’re trying to mobilize on the sea gate.” Glimmer began again, flitting around the room. “They’ve busted a hole in the bottom of it, and Adora’s already over there holding it together but they’re still in the middle of attacking and I need you to tell the folks on the ground what to do so I can go over there and help move people!” Catra moved to the table and clipped a communication device to her shirt.

“How long was this happening before you told me?” she asked, taking Glimmer’s place at the head of the table.

“Uh, about 45 minutes, it happened right after you left to go wait in the meeting room.”

“Gods, Sparkles! Why didn’t you tell me right away?” Catra exclaimed, looking at the table in front of her. 

“Thanks, Catra! You’re the best!” Glimmer responded, shooting her a thumbs up and disappearing in a shower of sparkles. Catra let out a groan before sending new commands to the responding princesses who, one by one with the help of Glimmer, were making their way to the sea gate. She pulled up every live feed she could get from the badges that the princesses were equipped with, a trick she had carried over from the Horde and suggested they incorporate, and assessed the situation. Immediately, she was able to send new orders to the arriving princesses and direct them in the right pattern to evade the oncoming attack. 

She-Ra seemed to be focusing all her energy on keeping the seagate active and ready for another attack. Scorpia wsa on level with her, protecting her from any incoming assiliants. Mermista was underwater and attempting to topple the boat that the clone battalion was on. Frosta was skating across the waves towards the boat and helping Mermista by blowing holes in the side of the boat. Lastly, Perfuma was dropped off by Glimmer just in time to block an incoming blast from the ship that was aimed directly at She-Ra. 

For all the ruckus they had caused before Catra had shown up, the ship was toppled within 5 minutes at least thanks to the added abilities of the rest of the princesses. Catra watched through the cameras as the clones were rounded up and transported back to Dryl for a long talk with Dak, and the princesses were brought to Brightmoon, likely for a group meeting about what just happened. Somewhere in her periphery she noted that the door closed behind her. Catra sighed and sat down in her chair as she dismissed various holograms that showed the locations of the princesses after noting that all the pins showed them in Bright Moon castle. 

“Sparkles, you should have told me about this sooner. This whole thing could have been avoided if you just-” Catra began, turning around in the chair before she saw who was at the door. Glimmer stood, regal as ever, next to three magicats. One she recognized as an official from a few days earlier, one was outfitted in the same dark leather armor of the guards they had met, and one was dressed in common Halfmoon clothing. Ignoring the first two, Catra spent a split second observing the third person.

She sported wild shoulder length hair which was cropped to the scalp on the sides, narrowly avoiding the mismatched tufts that shot out in front of her ears which were adorned with several small hoop piercings. She wore simple gray pants and a light blue button up shirt with a high collar and gold buttons, the sleeves of which were cropped into a tank top. Her wide and slightly surprised eyes matched the color of Catra’s but were in opposite positions. They stood at the same height.

“Sorry, they arrived right as I was bringing everyone back, and I found them before coming up here.” Glimmer stated nervously, walking closer to Catra and taking the communication badge off her shirt as she stood in momentary shock. Before anyone else could respond, the official from Halfmoon stepped forward.

“Apologies for the interruption, we were not aware that you would be occupied at this time.”

“No, no!” Catra exclaimed, a little flustered as she shook her hands in front of her, “I wasn’t supposed to be. This was a surprise to me too.” she finished, shooting a look at Glimmer who gave an apologetic shrug.

“That’s somewhat on me,” Glimmer said, addressing the official, “I pulled her out at the last minute to help deal with something in Salineas, but she’s all free now!” Glimmer gave her a gentle nudge towards the group.

“Wonderful.” said the official, clapping their hands together, “I hope you do not mind, but we brought one of our guards with us. This is the first time in many years that a citizen has been on the surface, and we wanted to be as careful as possible.”

“We understand.” Catra began again, eyes never again leaving Anjie who had still not spoken up but also continued to stare at Catra. “It’s a perfectly reasonable thing to do. Uh, why don’t we move back out of the war room.” Catra stumbled over her words, looking for a way out of the awkwardness and constant staring in favor of walking back towards the open door and holding it open for the others to follow her through. They walked back down the hallway in silence, Catra leading the group and the guard taking up the rear, until they reached the room Catra had been waiting in earlier. She once again held the door open as the official rested a gentle hand on her shoulder.

“I think we’ll wait out here and give you two some privacy, yes?” she said with a polite smile, nodding towards the door at Anjie who cautiously slipped inside. Catra gave the official a short nod before entering the room behind her sister and quietly closing the door. She took a deep breath before turning back to face Anjie. As she turned, she saw that Anjie had once again turned to face her.

“Um, hi, I’m- Well, I guess names are a little bit weird, but I’m your sister.” Catra said, holding out an unsure hand for a handshake. Anjie glanced down at her hand before taking it and pulling Catra into a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry.” she finally spoke. “I thought you were dead, I didn’t mean to leave you behind…” she said through quickly growing tears. Catra returned the embrace and attempted to hold back her own tears.

“It makes sense. You had no reason to think I would have survived, it was honestly a weird one time exception, but you can thank Scorpia’s mom for that.” Catra said with a dry chuckle. Anjie pulled back quickly and seemed to scan her face for something.

“You aren’t upset? You were my one responsibility that day and I couldn’t even get you out! I wouldn’t have made it either if not for Lazuli.” she said, looking solemn but not letting go of Catra. 

Catra shrugged. “You were a kid. You did the best you could, even I saw that.” Anjie gave her a confused look.

“On the projection, I mean. We were able to access the files on the First One’s tower and project the battle. We watched the whole thing go down…” Catra trailed off when Anjie’s face shifted to something akin to horror. 

“When I found out you were alive, I’d hoped that you wouldn’t remember that day, but you had to see it anyways.” Anjie said sadly, fresh tears springing to her eyes. Catra resisted the urge to hide from the show of emotion, and instead she raised her hand to swipe away the stray tears on her sister’s face. It comforted her when Adora did it, so maybe it would help now. Anjie smiled a bit at the gesture.

“We had to find out what happened. Who was left, if anyone. I honestly thought everyone was dead. The Horde reports only specified a sister, and they said that she was presumed dead.” Catra said, looking off to the side before Anjie let out a dry laugh.

“Guess that bitch really knocked me out cold, huh?” Anjie chuckled darkly. 

Catra thought back to the image of Shadow Weaver’s holographic limbs holding Anjie’s body in the air and the sickening thump of her hitting the ground that followed. She shook her head. 

“Yeah, she really did.” Catra felt her knees going weak at the thought. “Let’s sit down.” she suggested, motioning towards the couches in the middle of the room that faced an unlit fireplace. Anjie nodded, keeping a secure hold on Catra’s hand as they sat side by side on one couch. 

“You were, um, really good back there, at getting the princesses through their… situation.” Anjie offered as she sat down. 

“Yeah, I’ve had practice.” Catra remarked grimly, remembering that she would eventually have to tell Anjie about her past, assuming she wasn’t already aware. Anjie, seeming to disregard Catra’s expression, simply nodded and smiled in understanding, probably relating this to the fact that Catra was a royal advisor. 

“I should ask,” Anjie began, “what do you want to be called? I’ve only ever known you as Sol, but I understand that that’s not the name you’re used to now.” she said with a solemn smile. 

“I think Sol is still fine if it’s you or someone from Halfmoon, but my friends will probably still call me Catra.” Anjie nodded before letting out a short laugh.

“Where did Catra come from, if you don’t mind me asking?” she asked. Catra groaned and raised her free hand to her face.

“My girlfriend actually came up with it when we were kids. When they dropped me off at the Fright Zone she and a few other cadets were supposed to come up with something to call me and she just mashed the word cat and her name together and came up with Catra.” Catra explained. Anjie looked thoughtful for a moment.

“Adora, right? I met her on her way back from whatever it was they were doing… she was very tall and glowy for a moment.” she said, rubbing the shaved sides of her head in thought. Catra let out a real laugh this time.

“Yeah, she does that sometimes. She’s She-Ra.” Catra said with a fond smile, waiting for the shock that would inevitably follow. Anjie’s reaction was far less subtle than the reaction she had gotten from the court of New Halfmoon as her eyebrows shot straight up and her mouth dropped slightly open. 

“She’s She-Ra??” Anjie whisper shouted incredulously. “How are you with She-Ra?”

“That’s a long story, we grew up together in the Horde actually.” Catra recalled with a laugh. Anjie visibly grimaced again at the mention of Catra’s upbringing but recovered quickly only to look back at Catra with a confused expression.

“What happened to your tufts? Your’s always matched mine and dad’s when we were kids.” Anjie asked, motioning vaguely towards Catra’s hair which was pulled back into a messy ponytail. It was Catra’s turn to grimace as she raised a hand to the shorn spot where her hair tufts would be if she did not make the effort to keep them trimmed to the scalp and covered by other hair. 

She let out a heavy sigh before responding. “You remember that ‘bitch’ who knocked you out during the battle?” Catra asked cautiously. Anjie’s face twisted at the memory before she slowly nodded. 

“She was the one who raised Adora and I in the Horde. She used to mess with them as a way to get to me.” Catra explained, eyes downcast to her lap where their hands rest intertwined. Anjie’s grip on Catra’s hand tightened, and Catra looked back up to see Anjie holding back tears.

“That… monster raised you?” she asked, her voice shaking. Catra nodded.

“The version of her you met wasn’t even really her. She never actually went into the field, she just sent shadow spies to do her dirty work for her while she lounged around the Fright Zone.” Catra recalled with malice. 

“She’s dead now.” Anjie visibly relaxed at this and let out a shaky breath. “She never stopped being a bitch up until the moment she died.” Catra continued, noting that she should probably stop before she sent herself into a spiral over Shadow Weaver’s last moments again. 

“We got out eventually, that’s what matters now.” she said with finality. Anjie nodded back at her.

“I can’t imagine what it must have been like growing up with her, I’m so sorry you went through that.” Anjie said, wiping away her tears with her free hand. 

“Yeah, it was… not the best.” Catra responded, absently running her hand over a raised bump on her shoulder that was a direct result of one of Shadow Weaver’s ‘extra lessons.’ Anjie’s eyes followed the path of Catra’s hand and all at once became aware of the assortment of scars that covered the visible parts of Catra’s body.

“...My god, Sol. What happened to you?” Anjie whispered, raising their joined hands to inspect the exposed arm. Without thinking, Catra deflected.

“You know, this and that. The Horde, the war, the invasion. What specifically are you talking about?” Catra asked, waving her free hand almost dismissively before realizing that her statement was far too casual and wincing a bit at Anjie’s horrified expression. Anjie’s hand flew to cover her mouth as she gently shook her head and rested their hands back on their laps. 

“I’m so sorry Sol. If I had known… I would have come back for you, rules be damned.” she cried, beginning to shake gently with sobs. Catra panicked a moment before moving both arms to Anjie’s shoulders in reassurance.

“No! There was nothing you could have done! You were just a kid, and I’m glad you stayed safe more than anything else.” Catra spoke into her shoulder. Anjie’s arms encircled Catra’s waist, and her sobs quieted.

“Besides, I had Adora. She got me through most of it.” Catra said fondly, pulling away from Anjie. 

“Most of it?” Anjie asked, wiping her face. Catra mentally slapped herself for letting something like that slip. She gently sighed and prepared herself to explain her role in the war.

“Do you know what I did when I was in the Horde? Why I’m so good at leading the princesses in battle?” Anjie shook her head slightly. 

“When Adora first became She-Ra, she left the Horde as soon as she realized what they were doing. That lady from the battle for Halfmoon, Shadow Weaver,” Catra shivered at the name she had avoided speaking out loud for months. “She tasked me with bringing her back since we were best friends and she thought she would listen to me. It, uh, didn’t go as planned, and eventually Hordak got sick enough of it that he told her to stop and promoted me to Force Captain just to spite her.” Anjie nodded but showed no signs of interrupting, so Catra continued.

“Eventually she fled the Fright Zone and I became Hordak’s second in command. I fought Adora for three years before Prime showed up. It got really ugly… I’m the reason that the portal opened and everything was weird for a day.” Catra glanced back up from where her eyes had drifted down to look for a reaction, but Anjie seemed determined to see the story through. 

“Eventually when Prime did show up, I got brought up to his flagship with Sparkl- er, Queen Glimmer and Hordak. That’s when I actually started change, I think. I got Glimmer off the ship and back to Adora and Bow and told them to not come back… I didn’t think that anyone cared enough about me at that point to actually come back for me, and besides, I was pretty sure Prime was gonna kill me right then and there anyways.

“...He didn’t though. He, uh,” Catra squeezed her eyes shut, trying to push down the memories of green pools and chanting clones. “He cut my hair off and chipped me.” Anjie finally reacted in a small gasp as Catra continued. “When Adora eventually came back for me, he made me fight her. Dumbass came up there not even being able to transform into She-Ra because she broke the sword. Somehow she managed to summon her though and we all got out of there; I’ve been with the rebellion ever since.” Catra finished. She looked up once more expecting to find hatred behind her sister’s eyes at the knowledge of her actions. She expected her to push her away and walk out of the room and demand that she be taken back to Halfmoon. She expected a lot of things, but what she did not expect was for Anjie to wrap her in another hug as she cried.

“That must have been really hard. I’m glad you got out.” Anjie said softly and with no judgement. No longer being able to hold it back, Catra began to cry into Anjie’s shoulder. They remained this way for a few moments before there was a soft mewling from beyond the door. Catra pulled away and laughed softly before wiping her eyes and standing up. 

“One sec, there’s someone I want you to meet.” she said, walking to the door and opening it slightly. Melog trotted in happily and paused in front of her before giving her a curious glance and another meow.

_ “This is Anjie?” _ they asked, looking at Anjie’s slightly confused but much more apprehensive form.

“Yeah, buddy, that’s Anjie.” Catra nodded as she walked back to the couch with Melog in tow. She took her seat again as Melog sniffed at Anjie’s feet. Anjie shot her a concerned look as Catra laughed and ran a hand through Melog’s mane. 

“This is Melog. We found them on a planet called Krytis on our way back to Etheria from the flagship. They’re my own personal mood ring.” Catra said, laughing under her breath at Melog’s judgemental expression.

_ “That is putting it lightly, I am also your friend.” _ they said, shrinking down to the size of a house cat and jumping into Catra’s lap.

“Yeah, yeah. Also my friend.” she said fondly. 

“Can you… understand them?” Anjie asked, her expression more curious now than cautious. 

“Yeah, when we met them they somehow imprinted on me so I can hear them talking. Also the mood ring thing was a joke, but they really do reflect my emotions, watch.” Catra closed her eyes and thought of a recent trip she had taken with Adora to Mystacor. Melog purred in response as their mane turned pink.

“Woah! That’s so cool! What’s that mean?” Anjie exclaimed, looking over Melog curiously. 

“That one’s love.” Catra explained with a soft smile. “Anger or something else would have been a lot harder to do without actually being mad at something.” Anjie looked about ready to burst with joy at this news. Instead, she grabbed Catra’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. 

“What did you think about to make that happen?” she asked with an almost knowing smile.

Catra blushed slightly, “Adora. Ugh, she made me soft.” she said with an overdramatized sigh. “I don’t know what exactly the plan was for when you guys were supposed to leave for New Halfmoon again, but if there's time, you could stay for dinner?” Catra suggested, really hoping that she wouldn’t mention needing to leave Bright Moon immediately. 

“I’d like that.” Anjie said with a beaming smile. The sisters walked back to the door followed by a now regular sized Melog and exited the meeting room to walk to the dining area with the guard and Halfmoon official who had remained outside the room. Seeing as all of the princesses were present still in Bright Moon, it was more than likely that Glimmer would have dinner brought to the formal dining room as opposed to throwing everyone in the cafeteria that they would normally frequent on any other day. True to her assumption, Catra opened the door to the dining room to find most of the princesses in different places, waiting for food as they hung out and gossipped about their days. Scorpia, Perfuma, Frosta and Mermista stood off to the far side of the room, all talking animatedly about what Scorpia seemed to be describing as a big explosion. Bow, Glimmer, and Adora sat in their seats at the table moving papers from the table to files in bags. Everyone involved in the day’s events was, as expected, present. After shuffling all her papers into a bag, Adora glanced up and met Catra’s eyes. Her face lit up as she scrambled to stand and walk towards Catra, nearly tripping over her chair in the process. 

“Catra!” she exclaimed, capturing her girlfriend in a tight hug and placing a wet kiss on her forehead. Catra giggled quietly back as she wiped her forehead and returned the embrace. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Glimmer talking to the official and guard and leading them towards the table. Adora pulled back and continued to pepper Catra’s face with gentle kisses before Anjie let out a small chuckle behind them and Adora stood up straight and held her hand out.

“Hi! I know we met for a second when we all got back, but it’s nice to officially meet you! I’m Adora.” she stated proudly as Anjie took her hand and shook it gently.

“I’ve heard alot about you, Adora. I’m Anjie.” she responded in kind as Adora waggled her eyebrow at Catra.

“Oh? Good things I hope?” Adora laughed.

“Oh, shut up.” Catra said, shoving Adora’s face away and walking towards the table while the other women laughed behind her. She sat down in the seat to the right of Adora’s and Anjie took the seat to the right of her’s as the other princesses looked up from their conversations to notice the new people in the room. Scorpia was the first to bound over, stopping in the space behind Catra and Anjie’s chairs and bouncing excitedly.

“Oh, Catra! Is this her? I know you said they found her, but I didn’t want to assume. I’m just so excited for you!” Catra laughed at her friend’s antics before answering.

“Yes Scorpia, this is her. Anjie, this is Scorpia, princess of the Scorpioni kingdom. Scorp, this is Anjie, my sister.” Catra said, motioning to each person respectively. Scorpia let out a high pitched squeal and gingerly took Anjie’s hand in her pincer to shake.

“I’m so happy to finally meet you!” Scorpia said excitedly. Anjie chuckled amicably.

“Is this the Scorpia whose mother saved you?” Anjie asked.

“The one and only.” Catra responded in turn, looking happily between the merging of her old and new worlds. “Scorpia is one of my best friends.” she continued with a smile, one that was rivaled by Scorpia’s own face as she released Anjie’s hand to wrap her arms around Catra’s shoulders. 

“I hold that title with pride!” Scorpia exclaimed, releasing her hold on Catra and moving towards her own seat as the food was brought in. Everyone began to eat, talking amongst themselves before Mermista cleared her throat.

“So are you, like, gonna introduce us to the new people, or do I just have to be curious all night?” Mermista groaned from her seat in between Frosta and Perfuma. The relationship between Catra and Mermista was tenuous at best. After some time where Catra had helped rebuild Salineas and had incidentally picked up the Mer-Mysteries series to read in her free time, Mermista had reason to form a relationship with Catra that wasn’t based on their past as enemies. Forgiveness was a long shot, but Catra thinks that Mermista is just relieved to finally have someone to talk to about Mer-Mysteries.

Catra cleared her throat and stood to begin introductions again. “Everyone, This is First Council Chairman Ranfa, Li the Royal Guard, and Anjie, my sister.” For the most part the princesses didn’t seem overly surprised, they had all known in some small part that Catra was on the path to finding her family and so they remained politely neutral with the exception of Frosta who seemed to have been caught completely off guard and gasped loudly as she slammed a hand on the table.

“You have a sister?!” She exclaimed to the chuckles of everyone around her. 

“Frosta, I told you this was happening!” Glimmer said, acting only mildly inconvenienced at Frosta’s outburst before her face shifted back to a sort of fondness. Frosta crossed her arms and sat back in her chair before Catra continued, preparing to introduce each princess in turn.

“This is, oh geez this is gonna take a second. This is Frosta, princess of the Kingdom of Snows, Mermista, princess of Salineas, Perfuma, princess of Plumeria, Scorpia, princess of the Scorpioni Kingdom.” Catra paused for air. “Queen Glimmer of Brightmoon, Bow, and Adora who is also She-Ra sometimes.” she finished, retaking her seat with a huff.

“We should have you lead introductions more often.” Glimmer said with a snide smirk.

“Don’t you dare.” Catra retorted, pointing an accusing finger at the queen. The group let out a laugh at their antics and people began to eat. Chatter continued over the course of the meal, and Catra and Anjie learned many more things about each other in turn. Anjie heard some stories about Catra and Adora’s childhood and Catra learned that Anjie was still friends with Lazuli. More than that, they happened to be married and had two children! Catra moved quickly between surprise to delight at the knowledge that her family was growing by the minute, and Adora tried to quickly cover the fact that she choked on her food at the news. She promised to bring them all on her next visit and Catra brimmed with happiness at the prospect of a next visit. As the meal came to a close, Glimmer began returning each princess to their respective kingdom as Catra arranged a place for the group from New Halfmoon to stay overnight as it was far too late to reasonably send them out again. Catra had long since stopped bothering to try to hide her excitement as she and Anjie whispered conspiratorially to each other about arranging a sleepover in the room Anjie would be staying in. Adora put on an exaggerated pout and draped her arms across Catra’s shoulders from behind.

“Are you planning on leaving me tonight?” she asked with a sad voice, although Catra could see right through her charade and to the excitement that lingered in her eyes. Before she could tease back, Anjie spoke up.

“You’re more than welcome to join us, you know. I’d love to hear more about what a terror Sol was as a kid.” 

“Oh ho ho! I am going to drag you through the mud, love.” Adora said excitedly, planting another kiss on the back of Catra’s head. 

“Gods, what have I gotten myself into?” Catra groaned to herself as she leaned all her weight on Adora, hoping to catch her off guard and knock them both over. Adora was ready and easily caught her in her arms with a laugh. 

“You’re insufferable.” Catra said, looking up at Adora from her position relaxed in her arms, her purr betraying her sentiment.

“You love me.” Adora responded with a smile. 

“Yeah, yeah, I do, so what? Whatcha gonna do about it?” Catra asked, jumping out of Adora's arms and into a playful squat. 

“Come here and find out.” Adora retaliated, mimicking Catra’s stance before the latter grabbed Anjie’s hand and shot her a knowing glance as the pair of magicats took off down the hall. 

“Hey! No fair!” Adora called in the distance and she too took off after them. Catra and Anjie laughed freely, sprinting down the halls of Brightmoon hand in hand towards Adora and Catra’s room. They reached the door well before Adora and came to a stop as Adora caught up with heavy breaths.

“Damn, you gotta work on your endurance running, babe.” Catra remarked, letting go of Anjie’s hand and opening the door to the room.

“Gods, how are you even faster when there’s two of you?” Adora said, finally catching her breath. Catra simply chuckled in response as the entire group moved into the room. She walked to their wardrobe and opened the bottom drawer as she pulled out a simple wooden box. She turned around and found Anjie and Adora walking around the room with Adora pointing to things and making comments.

“I still don’t think the crystals actually do anything, though.” Adora remarked, pointing to the hanging crystals above their bed. Catra snickered to herself and made her way over to the pair. She took a seat on the bed and patted the space next to her while looking at Anjie. Anjie took a seat next to her and looked curiously at the box in her hands.

“When we were in Old Halfmoon, we found our old house and got into the basement. In the first hologram we saw, our dads said that there was something waiting for us in there for when we turned 18.” Catra began. Anjie gasped in recognition as she saw her name inscribed on the side of the box. Catra handed her the box and Anjie slid it open.

“We weren’t sure what to do with it until we found out that you made it out of Halfmoon. I hope you don’t mind, but I brought it with us so I could give it to you when we finally met.” Catra said, grasping the chain around her own neck and pulling her pendant out from under her shirt. Anjie gently set aside the fabric from the box and pulled out her own pendant before looking at Catra with tears in her eyes and a large smile. She threw her arms once more around Catra’s shoulders.

“Gods above, you’re the best sister I could have asked for.” Anjie mumbled into Catra’s neck. Catra returned the embrace before they pulled away.

“I mean, it was the least we could do. I did kind of steal some of your drawings off the wall.” Catra said, nervously running her hands through her hair. Anjie let out a loud laugh and slipped the chain around her neck.

“Grandma’s gonna be so happy that you found her necklace. I think she cried more than anyone when we found out you were alive.” Anjie stated simply, gaze still stuck on the necklace in her hand. Catra and Adora froze. Grandma? Their knowledge of family relations had certainly grown since they had left the Horde and they were pretty sure they knew what a grandma was.

“Who?” Catra finally asked, voice a little strained. Anjie looked up in alarm.

“Oh my goodness, I didn’t tell you! Our grandma on Papa’s side is in New Halfmoon as well! She’s the one who took care of me after Halfmoon fell.” Anjie explained, her face morphing into a look of pure elation despite the other two’s stunned silence. Adora finally broke the silence when she flopped into a nearby chair and spoke.

“Geez, Catra, you have any other family we should know about?” she remarked with a slight twinge of humor. 

“How should I know?” Catra mumbled. “Do we?” she asked, looking back to Anjie.

“No, no we don’t.” Anjie chuckled. “Both of our dads were only children so nothing there. Dad’s parents passed long before we were born and our grandpa on Papa’s side passed when I was two. Grandma’s still kicking though.” she explained with a smile. “She’s really excited to see you again.”

“Yeah, I bet. I would be too if I hadn’t seen Catra in 23 years.” Adora called with a snort.

“As if I’d let that happen. You can’t get rid of me that easily.” Catra retorted with a similar laugh.

“Yeah, one of us would have to be abandoned on a random planet for us to get that far away from each other.” Adora snarked.

“And what’s the likelihood of that happening?” Anjie asked jokingly.

“According to Entrapta, about 14%.” Catra responded, pausing after noting Anjie’s slightly concerned face.

“How would that even be a possibility in the first place? I know you said you were in space before, but you’re back now.” Anjie asked, confused. Catra shared a look with Adora before looking back at Anjie.

“We’re going back into space in a few weeks, Anjie.” Catra explained, taking Anjie’s hand in hers. “We won’t be gone for very long, a few months at most since we’re just going to some nearby planets.” Anjie looked devastated.

“But… we just got you back, and you’re already leaving again?” She asked tearfully. Catra sighed.

“That’s been the plan for a couple of years now. We were almost ready to take off when Scorpia told me about Halfmoon in the first place. We put it off for a little while longer so we could look into it, but we already made arrangements to meet up with some folks out there soon… I had almost given up on finding New Halfmoon before we left; the trip where we actually found it was gonna be our last one before we put the search on hold.” Catra explained, carefully gauging Anjie’s reaction. For the most part, she looked more upset than she had been before she found out that Catra wasn’t mad at her for being left behind. 

“I’m sorry if you feel like I’m abandoning you, but She-Ra here has plans to restore magic to the known universe and I’m not letting her do it on her own.” Catra continued, pointing a thumb in Adora’s direction. 

“No, no. It’s not that I think you’re abandoning us, I’m just sad that you have to leave so soon.” Anjie explained, looking up towards Catra with a sad smile. “I’m really proud of you, Sol.” she finished, wrapping Catra in a solid embrace. They stayed that way for a minute before Anjie pulled away to wipe her tears.

“Baby’s all grown up and saving the universe.” she chuckled. Catra returned the laugh as Adora finally spoke from her chair.

“Oh, so she can call you baby, but I can’t?” Catra shot her a glare without any heat behind it and Adora threw her hands up in mock surrender with a grin on her face.

“That’s all our dads ever called her.” Anjie remarked. “Sometimes I wondered if they just forgot your name and were too embarrassed to admit it. Hell, I think that’s where Grandma picked it up too, that’s what she calls you sometimes.” Catra raised her eyebrows at this.

“You guys still talked about me?” Catra asked, the end of her tail flicking in excitement and curiosity.

“Oh all the time! Mostly around your birthday though, we light a mourning candle every year for you and our dads.” Anjie recalled, suddenly looking pleasantly surprised. “I guess we don’t have to do that anymore for you though. Some people say it’s bad luck to light one for someone who’s still alive.” Catra and Adora’s jaws dropped.

“You’re kidding.” Catra said, gobsmacked.

“That explains a lot.” Adora mumbled from the corner. 

“Speaking of which!” Anjie suddenly exclaimed. “Your birthday is coming up soon!” Her excitement faded, and she suddenly looked forlorn. “Or will you be gone before it gets here?”

“Oh no, actually we moved the trip a little further back a few weeks ago when we found out that Catra’s birthday was coming up. We take off a couple days after though.” Adora explained, standing from her chair and moving to gather supplies for their sleepover. Anjie’s excitement returned.

“Oh good! It’ll be your first birthday I actually get to celebrate with you!” she said happily as she clapped her hands together in front of her.

“Really?” Catra asked. She thought there would have been at least one before everything happened.

“Yeah, you weren’t quite a year old before the raid. If I’m not wrong you were a couple weeks off still. We were going to celebrate with Grandma when we got back to New Halfmoon.” Anjie said sheepishly, once again running a hand along the shaved sides of her head. 

“Well, we’ll make sure to make it interesting.” Adora remarked, coming to stand in front of the pair, her arms loaded with blankets and pillows. Catra laughed at the sight and stood to take some of the items off the top of the large stack. Adora gave her a grateful look and a kiss before the trio began the trip down the hall to the room Anjie was staying in. 

The night was filled with playful banter and the recounting of several stories including the tale of how Catra once got herself stuck on a high ledge in the Fright Zone when they were young and ended up tearing her way through the sheet metal wall on her way down. Anjie told stories of their grandmother, and Catra got the sense that she was a caring woman who would be strict when necessary and seemed overprotective of Anjie, as she was her last grandchild left for a time, and has shifted that protectiveness to encompass Lazuli and their children. Anjie told them about her wedding and her children who were named Tao and Clementine. 

They eventually found a spare tracker pad and set it up to where Catra and Anjie could communicate directly with each other with boosted signal due to the underground nature of New Halfmoon and promised to have Entrapta rig them so that they could communicate when Catra was within range in space. Catra took the time to confirm with the official leadership of New Halfmoon that Anjie and their family were free to visit Bright Moon of their own accord. She knew she would not hear word back from them until morning, but they planned future meetings regardless based around either circumstance until they were confident they would see each other again soon. It was decided that they would likely have to make the trip to Bright Moon since Catra would be stuck there making the final preparations for their departure.

The sisters went to sleep far later than was reasonable with Adora having passed out on Catra’s lap after she finished pretending to help with the tracker pads. (She had retrieved the spare but had no idea how to actually configure the settings. Catra, however, had spent enough time with Entrapta to get the basics down.) Catra curled up next to Adora in their makeshift nest on the floor, and Anjie ended up laid on the closest edge of the bed to the pair with a hand outstretched towards them and intertwined with Catra’s. 

-

Anjie and the other two magicats returned to New Halfmoon the next day after many hugs and goodbyes (and a lot of tears), and Catra returned to her daily work. She was unhappy that she would be unable to accompany them at least to the base of the mountain that led to New Halfmoon to see them off, but it was for the best since there was plenty of work to be done in Bright Moon. They were still a few weeks out from their departure date, and they had already attempted to cram their schedule so that all preparations would be complete before Catra’s birthday. Catra had heard word back from the government of New Halfmoon in the morning that, in accordance with the terms of their new alliance, citizens would in fact be allowed above ground and were free to travel between New Halfmoon and Bright Moon at their leisure and so the sisters had wasted no time in finding a free spot in Catra’s schedule to bring the rest of their family down to meet her. Before she left, Anjie was sure to take many pictures on the trackerpad they had given her of Catra and Adora to show their family and promised to send some back of everyone else. 

A free spot in Catra’s schedule ended up being a little hard to find given that her time was spent split between using her ‘scary face’ on rude delegates and helping Entrapta however she could with last minute upgrades to Darla. They had settled on meeting a couple days before Catra’s birthday and staying in Bright Moon until the group departed for space. Thankfully, Catra had learned, it was mostly government officials and people of similar stature who were so strict about being exactly on time and the common people were far more lax about it. That being said, they had agreed that they would show up around midday, 2 days before Catra’s birthday, and would probably wander the grounds until they found her. Catra gave them a few locations where they would be more likely to find her like the gardens, the war room, or her bedroom. A good bet would also be to find Adora as they would inevitably seek each other out throughout the day.

As the days passed, Catra and Anjie practically bombarded each other with photos and messages. Catra sent pictures of the sky when the moons were setting to show Anjie’s kids who had never been above ground and Anjie sent videos of said children wreaking havoc across all of New Halfmoon. On the occasion that Adora got a hold of the tracker pad, she would send candid photos of Catra at work or during her off time just relaxing. Anjie would reply with family photos, pictures of their fathers when they were young and videos of the kids saying hello. It was a nice pattern they had set themselves into where they would send messages back and forth all day that would eventually pile up when Catra was inevitably pulled into another meeting. She couldn’t bring herself to mind however as it meant she had something else to look forward to when she was done for the day. 

Catra awoke on the day when it was decided that Anjie would make the trip back to Bright Moon more excited than ever. Their work in preparation for their trip had been finalized the day before and she and Glimmer had only a couple more meetings before they were done entirely. Luckily, the meetings were planned earlier in the morning so they would have time to prepare for the arrival of Catra’s family. By the time she woke, Adora was already out of bed, having left a note on their bedside table that read ‘went for a run, love you!!’ Catra smiled to herself and tucked the note away in a drawer with the rest of Adora’s notes for safekeeping. It was not long before she was attending her last meetings with Glimmer.

-

“I see absolutely no reason why our request is being denied!”

“As I’ve explained a couple times before, the Queen is quite literally leaving the planet in the coming week. It would be impossible for her to attend your ball regardless of what ally obligations you make think we are beholden to.” 

Catra sighed as she rubbed her temple. An official from some kingdom or another had been going on for the past hour and a half about why it was absolutely necessary for Glimmer to attend some random ball in the middle of nowhere a good two weeks into their space trip. She had been politely telling him for the same amount of time that, because they would literally be on the other side of the cosmos, Glimmer would unfortunately not be able to attend. Frankly, this man was beginning to grate on her nerves, and had it not been for Glimmer’s silent looks which asked her to remain polite, she would have thrown this fool out an hour ago. She was almost sure the ruler of that kingdom was trying to propose to Glimmer or something because of the way he spoke of them. Her one saving france in that moment was a shift in Glimmer’s otherwise neutral expression which silently gave her the go ahead to kick this man to the curb right as the man opened his mouth to speak again.

“There are traditions to be uphel-”

“Alright,” Catra interrupted as she stood from her seat, towering over the man still sitting in his chair. Even standing up she had a few inches on him; she wondered if this is what Adora must feel like as She-Ra. 

“This is how it’s going to go. I’m going to escort you back to your transport, you are going to head back to where you came from-”

“Orilion.” Glimmer injected. Catra spared a glance back at her and continued.

“Orilion. You are going to go back to Orilion and tell that king of yours that the Queen of Brightmoon will be on the literal other side of the galaxy at the time of his party and that she will not be in attendance.” Catra walked to where the man was sat, cowering from her glare. She put a deceptively tight grip on his shoulder and swiftly yanked him from his chair and started walking him towards the door, pointedly ignoring the snickers coming from the very professional Queen and guards of Bright Moon.

“Feel free to send him our deepest apologies and a thank you for the invitation.” Catra continued through a menacing glare down at him. The man let out a small whimper in fear with a nod of his head, and Catra was 30% sure he might have just wet his pants. They made it out of the castle and to the courtyard where the man’s transport lied in wait, and the escort opened the door for him. Hand never leaving it’s tight grip on his shoulder, Catra lightly shoved him into the vehicle and gave him her best sharp toothed smile.

“Have a nice day.” she said flashing her fangs a bit, and she shut the door with perhaps a bit more force than was strictly necessary. The vehicle pulled off into the distance and Catra let out a breath of air and reached for her tracker pas. With a groan, she realized she left it on the table in the meeting room in her haste to remove the man from the grounds as soon as possible. Without needing to check the time, she looked up at the sky and determined that it might as well be past midday and that she should go gather her things before resigning to go scream into her pillows about the meeting she just had. She ran both hands through her hair and took a deep breath and prepared to walk back to the castle.

“Catra!”

Or not.

Catra whipped her head around to the source of the noise and spotted Adora swiftly making her way towards her. Briefly, Catra was relieved at the sight of her partner before she spotted the figures walking behind her. It seems they took the advice to find Adora literally. Immediately behind Adora, there were two small magicat children running in an attempt to grab at Adora’s ankles. Farther back was a woman with her hair pulled into a complicated braid, Anjie who threw a wave, and a short elderly woman who walked with a cane that seemed to be more for the purpose of corralling children than it was for walking. 

_ How are they always able to find Adora before they find me? _ Catra wondered for a moment before she answered her own question to the sound of Adora’s legs getting caught by children and her tumbling to the ground with a loud, ‘Oompf!’ Catra snickered to herself.  _ Loud as hell. _

Catra made her way to where Adora now lay front first on the ground and crouched in front of her. She gently moved a couple stray strands of hair out of Adora’s face and laughed.

“You alright there?” she asked, a surprising amount of tenderness in her voice for the exchange she had just finished having. Adora spit out a bit of dirt and propped herself up on her elbows to look at the two young children who were still attached to her legs and laughing maniacally.

“All good.” she answered with a smile as she finished standing, the children choosing to run back towards the group of women who now stood next to them. Before catra could get a good look at anyone else, Anjie threw her arms around her neck and gave her a tight hug that had them rocking back and forth. 

“I missed you.” Anjie whispered into her hair before pulling back to squish Catra’s face between her hands. Catra let out a fond laugh.

“It was, like, two weeks!” Catra said, moving to take Anjie’s hands from her face and hold them at their sides. Anjie rolled her eyes with a smile.

“Still too long.” Anjie responded with a smile before turning to show the people behind her. Context clues and memories of pictures told Catra that the person with the braid was Lazuli, Anjie’s wife and lifelong friend. She wore similar simple pants to Anjie with cutouts at the bottom paired and a flowy purple shirt. The two children who had been so eagerly tackling Adora earlier now stood behind her legs and peeked out at Catra with curiosity. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know who she was in concept, but it must have been a new thing entirely to actually see evidence of her existence right in front of them. Tao, the older of the two and the only boy, stood to Lazuli’s right side and just from the look he gave off, Catra could sense a protective streak a mile long. Clementine, who was often called Clem for short, peeked out from Lazuli’s left side and already looked ready to make a run for Adora’s legs again. Both were dressed in the common light blues and purples of halfmoon but were covered in a bit of dirt from their previous tumble. Lastly, Catra focused on the old woman. She stood about a head shorter than Catra and Anjie but what she lacked in height she more than made up for in confidence. When she had approached, her gaze had been trained on the small children and their attempt to sneak up on Adora, now that same gaze was focused on Catra. They stared each other down for a minute. Catra could see some resemblances between her and Dante, who as a result of Anjie’s influence she had also begun to call Papa. She had bright whitened hair that flowed wispy down to her back and she wore an elegant but simple lavender dress. The one disparity between her and Dante was her height which Catra assumed he had gotten from his other parent. 

Catra had heard her voice once through a video that Anjie had sent her, but she was unprepared for the cadence with which she spoke.

“Hi, baby.” she said with a tearful smile, arms reaching out towards Catra. Catra immediately stooped down and accepted the surprisingly strong hug.

“Hey. It’s nice to meet you again.” she replied before pulling back and returning to her full height. Her grandmother sighed and for a moment her heart dropped.

“I had hoped that one of you would never be taller than me.” her grandma said with false exasperation as Catra began breathing again. “There goes that pipe dream, I guess.” She tapped the ground once with her cane, and Catra suddenly noticed the two children that again had Adora pinned on the ground stop and look at her. They rose from their spot atop Adora and returned to running before they came to an abrupt halt in front of Catra.

“Have you really been to space?”

“Is your girlfriend really She-Ra?”

“Did you actually die and now you’re just a ghost?”

“How tall are you?”

“What are the stars like?”

“Can we call you Auntie Sol?”

They rapidly fired off questions before Anjie chuckled and set a hand on both their heads to stop their talking and let Catra catch up. She thought for a moment and tried to answer in order.

“Yes. Yes. No. 5’4”. They’re really pretty, and yes you can.” The kids practically bounced with excitement as they began chasing each other again, seeming to begin an impromptu game of tag which they quickly convinced Adora to join in on. (She would obviously go easy on them.)

Catra felt a light hand on her shoulder, and she turned to see Lazuli standing next to her. 

“That was really impressive how you handled that guy. You’ll have to show me how sometime, there have been more than a few times when I wanted to kick people out of my store like that.” Lazuli commented, eyes alight with mischief. Catra could recall from her conversations with Anjie that Lazuli had taken up trade as a blacksmith in New Halfmoon, oftentimes making armor for the new royal guards. She definitely had the arms to prove it. Catra let out a dry chuckle before she could think better of it.

“Yeah, Horde training will give you an edge to your voice, huh?” Catra both mentally slapped herself and rose her palm to her forehead before Adora jogged up behind her, children in tow.

“I don’t talk like that.” she said with a confused face, obviously missing Catra’s blunder.

“Yes, you absolutely do.” Catra huffed, putting her hands on her hips. “Have you ever heard yourself talk as She-Ra?” Adora shrugged.

“You’re better at it anyways.” Adora smiled down at her.

“Yeah, practice…” Catra trailed off, not daring to meet the eyes of her family for fear that she would find shame in them despite the fact that they were all already well aware of Catra’s history in the Horde. A call from Clementine pulled her out of her thoughts.

“Auntie Sol! What’s this?” Clem waved them over excitedly and showed them a small bug on her finger. Catra walked over and peered down at the small creature. 

“That’s an inchworm.” she told her as the green creature made its way up her arm. Clem giggled and proclaimed, “This is my new brother!” much to the disdain of her actual brother. The group behind her let out hearty laughs, and Catra dared to turn her head towards them. They all looked onto the situation fondly, even Adora who seemed much more engaged by the kids than Catra would have thought she was going to be. Catra let herself smile and let go of the tension she had been feeling.

“You might want to put your new brother down then; sparkles might lose it if we bring more bugs into her castle.” Catra laughed as Clem nodded very seriously and gently set the bug down. Simultaneously from behind her she heard Lazuli and Anjie speak.

“Sparkles?” “More bugs?” 

Catra and Adora shared a humorous look before explaining that, yes, Catra did really call the Queen of Brightmoon ‘Sparkles’ and no one cared. After, Adora began to launch into a story about how they accidentally led a family of giant spiders from the Whispering Woods into the castle once and how Glimmer had made them wrangle them all and return them to their home and also threatened to kick them out of the castle; though, that was an empty threat as the next day, Glimmer cried and told them she would never actually kick them out.

They spent the majority of the rest of the day retrieving Catra’s things from where she had left them, showing her family around Bright Moon, and introducing them to friends like Melog and Scorpia. Eventually dinnertime rolled around and rather than head into the dining area, Catra grabbed the already prepared supplies while Adora swung by to grab food and they headed out into the Whispering Woods. Given that Anjie’s children had never been above ground before, Catra had offered the opportunity to spend the evening out in the woods where they could explore the trees while the adults sat and had a picnic and picnic they did.

They brought her family to their favorite spot in the woods, a small clearing not too far from the castle where they often set up ice ball or brought Swift Wind and Melog to roll around in the grass. As expected, Catra had been answering questions all day about her life and if she was happy. Catra had responded in turn with questions about magicat traditions and culture for which she and Adora received some not so subtle hints that their marriage customs were largely the same as the wider population’s. This was, of course, followed up with some very purposely clumsy attempts at winking and heavy blushing on Catra and Adora’s part. Adora, for the most part, spent her time running around with the children. It was nice to have someone around besides Catra who could match her energy.  Catra often caught her grandmother gazing happily at her and Adora.

Not for the first time since the war ended, Catra felt at peace with her life. She had heard stories all night about how her fathers grew up together before they eventually got married and she pointed out that it seems they were following a trend of falling in love with their childhood best friends before her Grandma guffawed and explained how she had also met her partners when they three themselves were all children. Catra watched Adora running with Clem and Tao before wondering if her hypothetical children would also fall for their best friend. It was a thought that left as quickly as it came, but now that it was out in the universe, Catra knew it would not be fully exiting her mind for some time. She took a deep breath and decided she would deal with it later. 

Adora plopped down next to her, breathing heavily. If not for the thought still plaguing her mind, Catra would have been more than happy to see Adora so worked up. She quickly feigned nonchalance as Adora slung an arm around her shoulders.

“Having fun?” Catra asked with a smirk. 

“Yeah!, the last time I met a kid this energetic was, well, you.” Adora admitted. Catra knew they had been energetic children, but she was sure that if she were ever this rowdy, Shadow Weaver would have had her head. Still, she had repressed most of that so who was to really say? Rather than voice these thoughts, Catra laughed softly and wrapped her arms around Adora’s middle. 

Before long, the kids had finally run out of energy or motivation to run and had settled down next to their family to draw on some papers they had brought out. Tao stood once to shyly hand a picture to Catra which depicted two figures in puffy suits holding hands surrounded by dots and other bigger circles. Child’s handwriting at the bottom read:  _ “Auntie Sol and Auntie Adora in space!” _ He briskly ran back to his spot and sat down again next to his sister and resumed his drawing. Adora not so subtly cried over the drawing and promised to hang it up in their room back at the castle. 

Darkness finally began to fall on the small group, and Catra and Adora led them to the middle of the clearing and instructed them to lay down. Tiny pin pricks of light slowly appeared above them much to the wonder of everyone from New Halfmoon. Anjie, Lazuli, and their grandmother may have once lived on the surface, but they had not been witness to the appearance of the stars like the rest of the world. They had only heard about them from stories that Catra had told. Adora took the time to point out her favorite constellations and create a couple of new ones designed for the kids much to their amusement. 

Reluctantly, the night ended and the group made their way back towards Brightmoon castle where Catra and Adora guided the newcomers to their rooms. Catra knew she had to leave for space in less than a week, but now more than ever she felt like that distant space in her had been filled and sewed up, an answer to a question she had never really stopped asking and one that she would never have to ask again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't find a good place to bring it up, but Catra's grandmother's name is Pien! (and yes she is poly but I imagine her partners are long since gone. To the war or to time I'm not sure I haven't thought that far lol)  
> just so you know, it isnt finished yet ;)  
> Edit: changed a child's name from Teo to Tao bc I liked it better lol


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter finally arrives!  
> This took about a week longer than I anticipated because I started a new job and had no motivation to finish it lol  
> Feel free to leave feedback since I will probably eventually write more things in the future!

Catra stared at the screen in frustration. She was sat in the hull of the ship while her tracker pad that Entrapta had rigged for extraplanetary communication flashed an angry red at her and gave her an image of herself with a thumbs down. 

"Ugh." 

Entrapta had also warned her that no matter how well she rigged it, they would eventually be out of range for her tech, and they would not be able to contact Etheria for the remaining couple months that they would be in space. They had been out for a couple months already, having visited some closer planets within range first so they could adjust their plans accordingly to any problems that might occur on these trial runs.

The problem that Catra faced now was that they had finally left the communication range of Etheria and were met with radio silence when they tried to send or receive messages. Luckily, she had already warned her family that they would be out of range soon so they wouldn’t panic when she did eventually stop responding, but that didn’t make her any less frustrated. Catra heard the door behind her that led to the hull of the ship, where she sat alone, open. She easily recognized the heavy pattern of Adora’s footsteps walking up to her before stopping right behind her. Gentle hands were placed on her shoulders as Adora pressed soft kisses into her hair.

“What’s wrong, my love?” Adora asked, not having to be there for long to be able to sense her frustration.

“I was gonna try to call Anjie, but we literally just got out of range.” Catra said with a sigh. 

“Does she know that we’re just out of range and not, like, dead?” Adora asked, moving to sit next to Catra on the floor.

“Yeah, I told her last night that we were getting close; I just didn’t think it would happen this soon after I said that.” Catra replied, lying her head on Adora’s shoulder and setting the tracker pad down on the floor in front of them. Adora put her hand on the small of Catra’s back.

“I just- She asked for updates so she knows we’re okay, and I don’t want to let her down after I’ve only known her for a few months.”

“I’m sure she’ll understand. At least she knows you’re okay.” Adora thought for a moment. “Who’s to say you can't keep sending her messages though? I mean, sure, they won’t actually send until we’re closer to Etheria, but you can send stuff so you don’t forget.” she suggested. “It won’t be the same as calling every night, but it’s something.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a good idea.” It would be a very one sided conversation for the better part of the next month and a half, but it was better than nothing. “Thanks, ‘Dora.” Adora gave her a fond smile and a kiss on the cheek before standing and reaching a hand out towards her.

“Come on, food’s ready.” Catra took her hand and lifted herself to stand and allowed Adora to lead her to the kitchens of Darla.

-

A month and a half later, Anjie receives 234 messages all at once while on an afternoon walk with Tao and Clem. It takes her two hours to go through them all before she reaches the last message and lets out a breath of relief. 

Sol <3: Heading home now >:) ETA: 2 weeks! 

-

“Stars, Adora! There’s no need to manhandle the equipment just so we can go take a nap faster.” Catra teased as She-Ra dropped another box of supplies on the ground outside of Darla. They had just returned to Etheria from their space adventure; recently enough that they were still outfitted in their space suits with the exception of Adora who had decided to transform in order to speed up the process of unpacking so she could promptly collapse on their bed in the castle. 

Adora sighed, “I know, I just want to be finished. We haven’t been home in months! I’m just excited to sleep on a bed that isn’t going to slide to the other side of the room when Entrapta decides to alter our course.” She rested her head on top of the box she had just unloaded.

“Yeah, I get that.” Catra responded, running a hand over Adora’s back, or what she could reach of it with her added height. “Let’s finish then, yeah?” she suggested, heading back towards Darla to help finish moving what materials she could. Everyone save for Entrapta, who they weren’t sure they had ever even seen sleep, worked at a slightly lethargic pace but eventually moved what they needed to the outside of their ship before Entrapta returned to the hull to fly it back to Dryl where she would continue to perform maintenance on it until their next departure. Adora returned to her original form, still in her space suit as well, and they prepared to leave the supplies in the courtyard for others to retrieve and head back to their rooms.

“Auntie Sol!” Or not.

Catra couldn’t say she was surprised. The last time she had talked to Anjie the previous night, she’d had a mischievous glint in her eyes that Catra had come to know as meaning she had a surprise planned, and Catra had been proud that she was beginning to pick up on her sister’s mannerisms. Catra had also learned that if Anjie was planning a surprise, regardless of whether someone figured out she was doing it or not, she would never tell you what it was, but by the looks in the eyes of Tao and Clementine, they also knew what was going on. This, she supposes, was the surprise.

Catra turned just in time to catch an incoming Clementine in her arms. 

“Woah! Hi!” Catra exclaimed, caught slightly off guard but still shifting the five year old in her arms so she could rest her against her hip. She shot an amused look at the approaching group of magicats.

“I take it this was the surprise?” Catra asked with a raised eyebrow as Clem began to tug at her neckline in order to take a closer look at her space suit.

“Why, whatever do you mean my dear Sol? I never surprise people, and frankly I’m offended that you think I would!” Anjie mused, feigning innocence. 

“Riiight.” Catra drawled, an amused look on her face as Tao ran to hug her legs.

“Is this your space suit? Have you been in space in this?” the seven year old asked excitedly. Catra chuckled.

“Yes it is, and yes I have.” Catra said, setting Clem down and kneeling in front of them. 

“They were so excited about the space suit that they forgot about the person who came in it.” Lazuli marveled with a dramatic roll of her eyes before the kids gaped at their mother and turned back to Catra.

“We didn’t forget about you, Auntie!”

“We would never!” they chimed.

“I know you didn’t.” Catra chuckled as she stood back to her full height and embraced Anjie. 

“Sorry about the range of the tech, Entrapta tried her best.” Catra said, pulling back.

“I mean, you literally weren’t even on the planet. I’m still shocked we can even talk from across kingdoms. The tech in New Halfmoon is generally limited to the city.” Anjie responded, exasperated.

“They figured out how to incorporate First One’s tech, but they couldn’t make the range extend past the city?” Catra asked.

“Oh no, they could. They just didn’t want to.” Lazuli interjected. “It kept us hidden and so that we wouldn’t be found just because some kid got a hold of their parent’s tech.”

Catra nodded in understanding and turned to look next to her where Adora was talking to her grandmother.

"It's good to see you again, Ms. Pien." Adora chimed, hugging her. 

“Oh, Adora. You know you can just call me Grandma.” Catra’s grandmother chuckled. Adora looked like she might burst into tears at any moment, but she settled instead for a tearful nod and a shaky smile. Catra laid a supportive hand on her shoulder with a smile and reached down to her grandmother for her own hug.

“Well, don’t keep us waiting! Tell us about space!” her grandmother said, pulling away from the hug and promptly squishing Catra’s face in her hands. Catra let out a soft laugh before removing the pair of hands from her face and leading the group inside.

Catra and Adora recounted several tales of their travels that had not already made their way over via video calls to the group. They told the story of how on two separate occasions, ambassadors from different planets had tried to sneakily propose to She-Ra without her knowing and how somehow Catra had managed to handle the whole situation with a level head but Glimmer had lost it on their behalf and nearly ruined one of their intergalactic alliances. They told about how they encountered a completely empty planet but when Adora had released the magic, they encountered thousands of different kinds of flora and only one kind of fauna which was a small underground dwelling group of rat like creatures who had emerged to feast on the new fruits. Melog got extremely excited when they mentioned how they had released the remainder of the magic back to Krytis despite its current lack of inhabitants and tried to tell the story themselves for which Catra provided translation, earning playful swats when she interjected her own jokes. 

As the night went on, the lull of conversation slowed. They had arrived planetside around midday, and Adora had excused herself fairly early on to go fall face first into their bed and rest after restoring magic to several planets. She had gone with a slight pout at the knowledge that Catra wouldn’t be coming with her but perked up a little when she was told that she wouldn’t be far behind. The remainder of the group watched as the children finally ran out of energy and settled for curling up in their mothers’ laps. It wasn’t until Anjie’s hands moved from Clem’s head to Catra’s that she understood what the look on Anjie’s face meant.

“You’re growing out your tufts again.” Anjie stated simply. Indeed, under Anjie’s fingertips was short gray fur poking out from in front of Catra’s ears. She’d mentioned to Anjie before how she kept them short out of a rejection of Shadow Weaver’s manipulation tactics. 

“What changed?” Anjie asked, hand falling back to her daughter.

Catra thought for a moment. Realistically, it was because she had forgotten her scissors on Etheria when they had taken off and hadn’t had the opportunity to get new ones while they were gone. Adora had offered to use the Sword of Protection to get the job done but Catra preferred that the sword stayed far away from her face, no matter how much she trusted her girlfriend’s swordsmanship. After a brief meltdown about old memories and about 15 minutes of keeping her face in Adora’s shoulder to keep her gaze away from the images her eyes dared to create, she had thought back to a picture her grandmother had shown her of her dads as kids. She noted the similarities between her own hair and Gale’s; Anjie’s hair took after the lighter color of Dante’s but Catra had clearly received her darker hair from the other side of the family. It had taken some talking and a long video call with Perfuma, but Catra decided that she wanted to reclaim that part of her image and frame it around being something positive rather than negative.

“Meeting you all, honestly. For the past 4 years all they were to me was just another way for someone to manipulate me.” Catra replied, tail curling into her lap. “But the only person who ever did that is long gone, and I wanted to reclaim them, in a way.” Her grandmother made her way over and ran a hand lovingly through her hair.

“They suit you.”

-

Prior to their arrival back to the planet, Catra had discussed with Anjie how there were crews that were beginning to scout out Old Halfmoon and reclaim their fallen city and how they would be taking part in returning to their old homes and gathering possessions and heirlooms. Anjie had offhandedly mentioned how they seemed to be surprised at the lack of remains from the long passed citizens and Catra explained how she had done some research in the town’s library and buried everyone according to tradition with the help of Bow’s fathers. She told how she had been particular that she was the only one to handle their fathers and that they were buried together to which Anjie cried happily. More importantly, Bright Moon was fairly close to Old Halfmoon, and Glimmer had offered to let the returning citizens stay in Bright Moon so they wouldn’t have to set up camp outside in the harsh cold. Although, Catra had a feeling that Glimmer was just trying to sneak her in some more time with her family because she had voiced her guilt at taking them off the planet right after they were reunited. As a result of this, there were small groups of magicats that were now roaming the Bright Moon grounds as they returned from their day in Old Halfmoon. 

A few days after their return, and after the squad had had some time to rest from their travels, Catra made her way back to the city she sought out months ago. People had begun venturing back into the city about a month before they had returned to the planet, and according to her family, quite a bit of progress had already been made. Walking into the city, it was abundantly clear that far more people had been here in the past two weeks than in the past 20 years. Construction crews lingered around every corner, whether they were reconstructing the rubble of the fallen castle or simply individual families replacing the caved in roofs of their abandoned homes. 

Acting partly as a representative of Bright Moon and partly as a representative for her family, Catra spent her time in the city split between milling about her family’s old home while removing possessions and the castle where she discussed how to best support reconstruction efforts with Bright Moon resources. While in the castle, Catra was witness to the return of the rivers which historically ran through the throne room. She watched in fascination as the south running river magically leapt over the west running river as though it was what it was always meant to do. (Someone eagerly explained how amazing it was that the rivers ran so perfectly that no one inside ever even got sprayed with rouge drops of water. Catra thought they might get on well with Entrapta.)

Catra also had plenty of time to submerge herself in what she could learn about magicat culture. Including, but not limited to, the fact that it was very common for people to have their ears pierced multiple times as both a rite of passage for older teens and an indication of your career. She had noticed that Anjie had several herself, but Lazuli had none due to the nature of her work despite mentioning she had them in her youth. It was decided she would look into that later. Overwhelmingly, the city looked to be in vastly better shape than it was during their last visit.

-

Adora wrung her hands together over the object enclosed in her left fist. For the millionth time that day she opened her hand to ensure that her golden wing buckle was still there and that she had not dropped it somehow. Somehow, Adora had made it through the near end of the world (not without a hitch, but she did her best), but the thought of proposing to her girlfriend of 4 years made her more anxious than she had ever been on her way towards certain doom at the Heart of Etheria. The thought of telling her girlfriend’s family about it worried her slightly less but still a significant amount.

Long before Catra had ever joined the side of good, and fairly soon after Adora herself defected, she was introduced to the concept of marriage. In the Horde, relationships had been viewed as something to be taken advantage of by your enemy. Fraternization, as it had been called, was essentially illegal. Since joining the rebellion and learning about marriage as a concept, Adora had only ever been able to imagine herself being married to Catra. Marriage had been explained to her as a promise that two or more people make to each other to always be together and always support each other, even through tough times. This had resonated with Adora as it strongly resembled a promise she had made as a very young child. 

And so, here Adora found herself about to tell Catra’s family about her idea to propose. The concept of asking permission from someone’s family to marry them had sounded just a tad archaic and possessive to her, but she still liked the idea of letting them know beforehand. It wasn’t like she hadn’t already basically told the entire princess alliance by accident simply because she was physically incapable of keeping her mouth shut on the best of days. Regardless, Adora knew she wanted this. She wanted a future with Catra and whatever crazy shenanigans that came with it. Maybe even to start their own family if her immediate fondness of the young children of Catra’s sister had been any indication. (And if she had decided she wanted a family with Catra upon first laying eyes on the children whose energy was unparalleled by anyone other than young Catra herself, then that was her business.)

  
Adora had excused herself from Bright Moon early that day citing ‘She-Ra business’ in order to make the trip to Old Halfmoon where Catra’s family had reclaimed their old family home after the reconstruction. It had been nearly a year and a half since they had reunited and about 6 months since they had returned to the surface in order to be closer to Catra. Adora knew that Catra would be swamped with meetings all day, so she decided that it was probably safe to make the trip that day. Swift Wind had dropped her off at the entrance and she strolled through the now familiar streets, waving at people who recognized her, and made her way towards the Fenire family residence. As she walked up to the sturdy adobe house, she took a deep breath and raised her hand to knock on the door. 

“Oh, Adora!”

Adora’s head whipped around so fast that her ponytail hit her in the face, and she was left to spit out the strands that had attached themselves to her mouth. Anjie rose from her spot on the ground in the yard where it appeared she had been tending to the garden. She was wearing comfortable looking overalls, the legs of which were covered in dirt. Anjie wiped her hands on her thighs and set down the tool she had been holding as she made her way towards Adora. 

“I didn’t expect to see you today. What’s up?” Anjie asked, not looking the least bit surprised that she was here without Catra. Any script that Adora might have tried to come up with on her way here dissolved on the tip of her tongue as her mouth dried up and she opted to open and close her mouth a few times before muttering out a lame, “Uh…” Anjie had the decency to only laugh a little before she opened the door and invited Adora in. Adora was thankful for her understanding as she stepped inside to see Lazuli sitting in a chair reading to Clem and Tao who were both listening intently and drawing on various papers scattered upon the ground and Catra’s grandmother rocking in a chair knitting. The first to notice her presence was Clementine who promptly shot up and sprinted for her.

“Auntie ‘Dora!” Any apprehension that Adora felt about Catra’s family not accepting her idea vanished. This wasn’t by any means the first time she had been called the kids’ aunt alongside Catra but each time it happened, a small part of her thanked the universe for the easy welcome into their family.

Tao waved enthusiastically from the floor, and Lazuli closed her book after marking her page. Adora waved back and laughed quietly when Anjie pried Clementine off of her legs.

“Morning, Adora. What’s going on? You looked nervous.” Lazuli called from her position on the chair. Adora could feel her face fall a bit as her anxieties came flooding back to her.

“I actually wanted to talk to you guys about something and, uh…” she tried to phrase it in her head. Get your permission? No, too weirdly possessive. Inform you of upcoming events? Way too clunky; she would leave the professional sounding talk to Catra.

“Get your thoughts on the situation.” Adora mentally high fived herself for getting the sentence out correctly. 

“Sure thing.” Anjie said, motioning to the couch where Adora took a seat. Anjie leaned down to the kids.

“Why don’t you guys go play outside? We’re gonna have a talk.” The children abandoned their papers on the floor and ran for the front door.

“Don’t tear up the garden!” Lazuli called after them before turning back to Adora. “Tao always tries to bring us flowers, but he usually nearly kills the plant in the process.” she explained with a fond roll of her eyes. 

“Ah he means well, but the boy loves bringing people flowers more than he knows how to deal with.” Grandma Pien chuckled. “Your dad would have encouraged it, you know.” she said with a teasing pointed look at Anjie.

“I know Gramma, but I would still appreciate it if he didn't kill the garden I just managed to bring back to life.” Anjie chuckled. “Anyways, what’s up?” she asked, also sitting on the couch next to Adora, albeit far less tensely. Adora took a deep breath and tried to organize her thoughts.

“I- So I- I was thinking about- God this is going to take forever.” Adora tried, putting her face in her hands before deciding to just say it quickly and get it over with before she could regret it. “I’m going to propose to Catra!” she blurted out, face still covered by her hands. With her limited vision, she could only guess what silent reaction the wives were giving her. Perhaps a stunned silence? Maybe a more angry reaction because they thought Adora was undeserving of their Sol. She braved a peek through her fingers to find neither. While Lazuli certainly was more surprised than Anjie at this news, both of their faces were split in wide grins (Anjie’s holding a similar tone to the shit eating grin that Catra sometimes had). Anjie’s hands shook excitedly in front of her before she wrapped Adora in a hug.

“Oh, I’m so excited for you two! That’s so great! It’s wonderful!” Anjie pulled back from the hug with a confused expression. “You know you don’t have to ask our permission right? Sol is her own person, and ultimately, it’s up to her.” Adora let out a short laugh.

“Oh no, I know. I was going to do it either way, but I felt like I should, I don’t know- like, tell you first?” Adora offered before backpedaling slightly. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, approval would be great! I wasn’t really sure whether you would approve or not in the first place, anyways.” she admitted sheepishly. Anjie looked scandalized but it was not her who spoke up immediately.

“Adora,” called Grandma Pien, “You took care of our baby girl when we weren’t able to. You got her through every day in that horrible place and eventually got her out even at great personal risk to yourself. There is no doubt in my mind that you would do anything for our girl, and we’ll be forever grateful for all that you’ve done.” she said with an aged reverence before her face shifted into a familiar mischief. 

“Now why on Etheria would we not approve of this?” she asked playfully. Adora looked decently embarrassed at her previous worries before she shrugged.

“I’m not sure. I just- I’m not perfect or anything, and I try everyday to be the best for her because she deserves the world. Hell, I’d bring her the moon if she asked me to!” Adora spoke with a soft look in her eyes.

“Can you do that?” Lazuli asked, seeming genuinely unsure of the answer she would get.

“I mean, maybe a moon rock?” Adora considered this for a second. Bringing Catra the actual moons would probably mess with their orbit, and Catra had literally already been to space. “Although she already has a bunch of random things from other planets, and I doubt she would actually want the moon but I would still try!” she said, determined. Everyone in the room laughed kindly at Adora’s determination.

“What are you planning on giving her?” Anjie asked with the same sparkles in her eyes that Catra got when she got to blow something up. 

“Oh, uh” Adora fumbled to get the buckle off of her belt before holding it up. “I got this when I joined the rebellion; it replaced my Horde badge. I’ve worn it for years.” she explained before letting out a nervous chuckle.

“I kind of already took something of hers before I realized I did it.” Adora said as she scratched the back of her neck nervously. The rest of the room gave her confused looks which prompted her to continue. 

“She had this mask that she wore for years in the Horde; sometimes I think it was glued to her head, honestly. She even wore it to sleep.” This prompted lighthearted laughs around the room and Adora tensed before continuing. “When she was taken by Horde Prime, he took it from her, and we never found it again even though I have a sneaking suspicion that I know where it is.” Adora shivered a bit at the thought of Horde Prime’s weird trophy room.

“When I got She-Ra back, back then, the headpiece reformed in the shape of her mask.” she finished.

“Wasn’t that before you guys even got together?” Anjie asked. Adora could feel her face flush a deep red.

“Uh, yeah. It definitely was. Although, in my defense, I didn’t know it was a thing until after the war. The Horde didn’t exactly have comprehensive education on those things and I barely understood the concept of marriage after I defected.” Everyone nodded in understanding before a shout echoed from the entrance to the living room.

“You and Auntie Sol are getting married?!” yelled Clementine from her spot next to Tao who, sure enough, was holding a few flowers in his hands.

“No, they’re already married, dummy.” Tao attempted to correct.

“They’re not, actually.” Lazuli responded which earned a dropped jaw from Tao. “But they will be soon.” 

“Yay!” Clementine exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air. “Can we come to the wedding?”

Adora chuckled, “Of course you can.”

-

Adora proposed a week later. Of course, the answer she received was an enthusiastic yes, but she could have sworn that the nerves would have killed her had she waited any longer. They were married 7 months later in a smaller ceremony (which they got only at their constant insistence), and Tao and Clementine wreaked havoc across the entire party. 

It was adorable.

Catra had pulled Adora aside for a moment together after the fanfare of the day and after the announcement had been made to all of Etheria that She-Ra and Catra were married. Catra loved their friends and family, but she swore that if she had to spend another moment being bombarded with Netossa’s suggestive eyebrow wiggles she might combust. The pair stepped onto a balcony and held each other in the companionable quiet. 

“Hey. Guess what.” Adora giggled. Catra let out an exaggerated but fond sigh.

“Yes, Adora?” Catra responded.

“You’re my wife.” Adora said with childlike excitement. Catra responded with a squeaky laugh.

“Yes I am. Now you’re really stuck with me.” Adora held her closer.

“I wouldn’t want it any other way.” 

They stood in a comfortable silence for a few moments before Catra noticed Adora tensing slightly.

“Hey, what’s going on in there?” Catra asked, bringing her hand up to Adora’s cheek. Adora leaned into the touch. “I can practically hear the battle going on in there.” Adora smiled lazily back at her.

“I think you might know me a bit too well.” Adora said. Catra shrugged with a smile as Adora’s gaze returned to the view in front of them.

“How do you feel about kids?” Adora asked nervously, still not meeting her wife’s gaze.

“Kids?” Catra asked with a tile of her head. “I mean, I only know, like, two kids personally, and they’re pretty cool. Why?” Adora bit her lip.

“No reason. Don’t worry about it.” Adora replied, waving her hand dismissively. She should know better.

“Adora.” Catra chastised, her hand dropping from Adora’s face. Adora sighed with a whine.

“I… I know we already have a family, and I love them! I really do!” Adora trailed off after this.

“But?” Catra prompted.

“I want to start our own family.” Adora began again, taking Catra’s hands and holding them in front of her. “I just don’t want to rush you into anything you’re not comfortable with, and I know we just got married and it might be too soon but-” Adora continued rambling but was cut off when Catra pressed a soft kiss to her knuckles. 

“Okay.”

“I- What?” Adora stopped in her tracks. 

“I said okay. Let’s do it.” Catra said with a small and giddy smile. 

“Wait, really? You want to?” Adora asked incredulously. 

“Yeah, I mean, it probably won’t happen right away anyways, and I’ve honestly been thinking about it for a while myself.” Catra admitted sheepishly. Adora looked near ready to burst into tears as she threw her arms around her wife once again.

Three years later, a child named Finn would be born and Tao and Clem would be the most excited people in the room aside from Finn’s mothers themselves as they vowed to teach them every trick they knew. Adora and Catra would roll their eyes and laugh and finally understand what Madame Razz was talking about all those years ago, and Catra would wonder where along the line in between becoming the leader of the Horde and now that she became deserving of this kind of unadulterated happiness. She would remind herself later that this had always been waiting for her. 

All she had to do was go back.

-

“Go back to your childhood.   
What were the fascinating things?   
What's out there?   
What's beyond the stars?   
How long does it go on?  
And mama said, "It goes on always and always and always."   
The child wonders.   
It's exciting that this is something that never ends  
Then the child asks about time  
How long ago was long ago?”  
~Alan Watts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the support on this fic!!  
> I have an outline for what would probably be a super long one shot of what happened to Anjie between the Battle for Halfmoon and when she finally meets Catra, but I wasn't sure if anyone would want to read it because I might be more invested in these random characters than the readers. It would also take a while to come out simply because I have a job again and it takes up most of my time, but if anyone would be interested in reading it let me know in the comments and I'll make this story part of a series! (edit: i did it, I'm working on that fic now!)  
> if you feel like keeping up to date with my random fic shenanigans, you can find my public twitter @dip_doppp - fair warning though, it's not free from explicit content!


	11. Survivor's Guilt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this only took a month to actually finish lol  
> I know I said I would make it a series but I figured that just adding another chapter would reach more people than posting a whole new work  
> sorry it took so long, I wrote over half of this literally just today (or yesterday by the time that yall are reading this!)  
> (Please ignore any typos I didn't want to read back through 15000 words lol)

**Age 7 - The day after the Battle for Halfmoon**

The last thing Anjie remembered before opening her eyes was the smell of smoke and the burning of electricity under her skin. The next thing she remembers is that she was supposed to be holding something. The third thing she remembers is that that something was her little sister, Sol, who is decidedly not in her arms. These thoughts pass through her head in rapid succession before a jolt of panic runs through her body as she jerks awake.

The first thing she recognizes is that she’s several feet off the ground. The next thing she realizes is that she is being carried by someone who has just startled at her sudden awakening. The third thing she realizes is that this person was much more startled than she realized because she is slipping from their arms. Rather than wait for this to happen, she attempts to jump from their hold and land on the ground in front of them. The fourth thing she realizes is that her limbs feel like lead and she cannot do anything but allow the person to readjust their grip on her. 

The last thing she hears before passing out again is Lazuli’s voice, somewhere in the distance, calling her name. Lazuli will tell her in a few days that she was right next to her head when that happened, but in the moment, Anjie will not care either way. When Anjie next wakes, she is laid beneath the shade of a large tree. There are a few people milling about, all looking to be in various states of being nervous or distraught. Before Anjie can process anything else, she decides, she must sit up to better understand where she is. As she moves to do this, pain shoots through her abdomen, and she lets out a muffled groan before she feels a small hand on her shoulder.

“Anjie! You can’t move!” comes a high pitched voice.  _ This kid sounds familiar. _ Anjie thinks absently before tilting her head back ever so slightly to see a disheveled looking Lazuli staring back at her. 

“Lazuli?” Anjie tries to ask, but her voice is more rasps than anything coherent. 

“Here.” Lazuli says, bringing a bottle of water to Anjie’s lips. Lazuli tilts Anjie’s head back a bit as she downs half of the bottle. She recaps the bottle and sets it off to the side before beginning to play with Anjie’s hair. If the random messy braids scattered throughout her mane were any indication, Lazuli had been at this for a while.

“What happened?” Anjie finally gets out. Lazuli looks around nervously before settling back on Anjie. 

“Jack and I broke the rules and came back for you.” she explains with a worried look. “You almost didn’t make it.” Anjie gives a confused look before memories come back to her in bits and pieces.

Papa was in the house.

Dad was with her. Sol was with her.

She got… burned?

She woke up in Jack’s arms and tried to jump but couldn’t.

The battle. There’s bandages around her stomach and there’s bits of red showing through. But where was-

“Sol. Where’s Sol?” she suddenly says, sitting up despite the pain that is running its course through her whole body now.

“Stop! You’ll open your stitches!” Lazuli exclaims, grabbing Anjie’s shoulders and trying to lay her back down. 

“Where’s my sister?” Anjie asks again, now verging on desperation. Sol was her one responsibility. If Lazuli and Jack had broken the rules and come back for them, then surely if Sol was not with Lazuli then she would be with her older sibling. Lazuli looked down in sadness.

“We couldn’t find her. Jack said that…” she trailed off and looked to her right where Anjie could now see Lazuli’s mom and Jack sitting near a small fire. Lazuli took a deep breath.

“They said that the Horde doesn’t leave survivors. I’m sorry, Anjie. I don’t know where she went.” Lazuli finished, tears welling up in her big hazel eyes. 

That couldn’t be right. Sol had made it through bad things already; she’d had the flu when she was only 7 months old and had made it through that, surely she would be fine. 

“She’s a baby, she couldn’t have gone far!” Anjie reasoned. “We just have to go back and look.” Anjie wasn’t entirely sure where the group was now but she was sure that if she cried enough someone would take her back; that had always worked on Papa. It was probably also how Lazuli convinced Jack to come help her find Anjie. 

“We can’t go back, Anjie. The entire city is filled with Horde soldiers! Me and Jack barely made it out when we got you! I’m sorry, there’s nothing we can do now. She’s probably-”

“Don’t.” Anjie interrupted. “Don’t say that. She’s not. She can’t be.” Any attempt made at logic would not solidify in her 7 year old brain. Some voice in her head told her that if someone admitted out loud that her sister was dead that it would really be true. If that happened, she wasn’t sure what she would do. Instead, Lazuli simply hugged her friend’s shoulders and cried. Anjie wouldn’t let herself cry though. She knew her dads probably weren’t coming back from the city. She had seen them fall but she also never checked on them afterwards, so she might be wrong about that too. But Sol had been fine; if nothing else, she was a fast crawler, maybe she found an alley to sit in to wait for someone to find her. She was smart like that. 

Anjie was pulled from her thoughts by the approach of Lazuli’s mother. She walked up with a careful smile on her face and laid a calming hand on her daughter’s shoulder. Lazuli looked up from where she had buried her face in Anjie’s shoulder and continued to cry in the direction of her mother. Lazuli’s mother turned to face Anjie, and her smile slipped off of her face. 

“I’m so sorry sweetheart. There was nothing anyone could have done. They’re gone.” she said.

Anjie’s stomach filled with a weight not unlike how her limbs had felt earlier. Distantly, she felt cold fingertips brushing her hair away from her face. There were people talking to her but her ears were turned down and she could not understand them. They sounded as if she were underwater and they were above the surface. 

The hands in her hair kept moving, but Anjie did not care. Lazuli’s mom had said it. They were gone. They weren’t coming back. They were dead. In some senses, nothing really mattered anymore. Her home and family were gone, and all she could do was stare blankly at the fire that someone had set up in front of them. 

Anjie sat there for a while, mostly unblinking, mouth ever so slightly agape and unresponsive. At some point, she recognized that Lazuli had been holding a bowl of food in front of her and speaking, but she remained unmoving. She felt something warm grab her hands as wet droplets began to form around them. Form? No, that wasn’t right. Lazuli must be crying, Anjie thought. The dull voice began to get louder.

“Please, Anjie! You have to eat. You haven’t eaten in a whole day!” Lazuli begged. Anjie could only flick the end of her tail in irritation. Why did Lazuli come back in the first place? Why didn’t she leave her with her family? She could be with them right now if Lazuli hadn’t come back.

“What?” Lazuli questioned incredulously, more tears gathering in her eyes. Oh, she had been talking out loud. 

“Why would I leave you behind? You’re my best friend! I couldn’t go without you!” Lazuli exclaimed, motioning so wildly that she nearly knocked over the food she had brought. 

“Y’should’ve left me.” Anjie managed to mumble. Lazuli shook her head violently. 

“I messed up.” Anjie continued. Lazuli threw her arms around Anjie’s neck, now fully disregarding her original mission to get Anjie to eat. Lazuli tried to form words, but all she could manage was repeating the word ‘no.’

Anjie kept staring at the fire. Lazuli eventually fell asleep, never letting go of Anjie. Lazuli’s mom came to check on them and gave them a blanket. Anjie kept staring. She didn’t sleep. She didn’t cry.

-

A combination of exhaustion, hunger, and healing was probably what led Anjie to being put in the back of a wagon on her way to New Halfmoon. She thought she had stayed up the whole night, even if her eyes had slipped closed eventually. She had still been awake when Lazuli woke up and gave her the most worried look her still sleep ridden brain could manage. By now, she reckoned, she was too tired and too far away to get back to Halfmoon on her own anyways. She wasn’t sure what she would do when she got to New Halfmoon either. She thought her dads had mentioned having family there, but Lazuli couldn’t remember who or where exactly in her exhausted state.

Thoughts turned to worries which turned to anxiety that plagued her mind for the entire trip. It was only when Lazuli and Jack came to retrieve her from the back of the wagon that she realized they had finally arrived at New Halfmoon. 

They approached the base of the mountain where the entry to New Halfmoon stood with a little under a dozen people nearby, all heading into the cavern in front of them. A squad of guards stood near the entry and directed weary travellers into the mountain. Lazuli, who had a firm grip on Anjie’s hand and was practically dragging her towards the tunnel, shrunk under their gaze and stood closer to Anjie. 

The walk through the tunnel seemed to go on forever and be over in a matter of seconds, and they emerged to see a large city covered in dancing lights. The amount of commotion was a stark contrast to the solemn quiet of their travels. Lazuli’s mother led their small group as Lazuli, her older sibling Jack, and Anjie trailed after her. They paused for a moment as Lazuli’s mother scanned the crowds for a moment, seemingly trying to spot something before she let out a sigh of relief as a man approached them. Vaguely, Anjie remembered that this was Lazuli’s uncle but she only continued to stare at the ground. 

Around them were several small groups of people, some were rejoicing in the presence of their returned loved ones, some were crying at the news that people would not return, others were still milling about searching for familiar faces. As Anjie scanned the crowds she spotted someone she recognized. A short older woman was quickly making her way over and she remembered that Papa’s mom still lived in New Halfmoon. It wasn’t that she forgot about her Grandma or that she lived here, but in the confusion surrounding the battle, some details had slipped her mind. As her Grandma Pien made her way over, Anjie could see tears making their way down her face as her eyes searched the group around her to look for other family members. 

It was then that the events of the past two days came flooding back to her and Anjie finally broke her silence. Anjie tore away from Lazuli and ran towards her Grandmother, sobbing. 

“Gramma!” she cried between hiccups. Her Grandma caught her with surprising agility and held her tight. She ran her hands through her hair and attempted to soothe her cries. Anjie’s wails joined the hundreds of others who wept for their fallen loved ones as she clung to her Grandmother.

“It’s alright, sweetheart. You’re okay.” said her Grandmother through her own tears. 

“But everyone-” Anjie attempted to protest.

“I know, dear. I know.” They stood in near silence for a while, punctuated only by Anjie’s hiccups and occasional sobs. Her Grandmother pulled back and wiped the still flowing tears from Anjie’s cheeks.

“Let’s go, love.” she said in a soft, sad voice. 

“Wait!” Anjie said, pulling away and running back towards Lazuli. She crashed into her friend with great force that nearly sent them toppling, the strength of which was returned in kind. 

“I’ll see you soon, right?” Lazuli asked, looking mildly panicked between her own mother and Anjie’s Grandmother. Lazuli’s mother gave a small smile and a nod which relaxed both girls. They shared one more hug and a farewell before Anjie gave a sad wave and returned to her Grandma. 

-

**Age 7 - A month after the Battle for Halfmoon**

Although a month had passed since citizens from Old Halfmoon had stopped arriving, the city seemed to just now be beginning to exit the consistent lull it had been in since Anjie arrived. Granted, things were actually going fairly fast with people attempting to set up emergency housing for the displaced and trying to find families for the survivors. However, for Anjie, the past month had been primarily spent in her Grandma’s home. She knew that New Halfmoon had a school where most of the children attended, and she had passed it several times while out walking in an attempt to get to know the city better. She assumed that she would likely see Lazuli there on most days.

This is not to say that she hadn’t seen her friend at all for the past month. Quite the opposite actually, they saw each other almost every day a week in most cases since Lazuli’s family was also not acquainted with the city and took every opportunity to explore with Anjie and Pien. Within the school grounds, however, was a mystery. Her Grandmother had done her best to describe it to her but she had not had reason to enter the school grounds since her fathers left school and it had since been remodeled. Lazuli seemed to embrace every opportunity to explore someplace new and learn new things about the city; Anjie just wanted to go back home.

The day finally came when Anjie could no longer avoid entering the foreign territory of the school grounds. She and Lazuli had agreed to meet inside the school once they found out that they would be in the same class. And so, with dread filling the pit in her stomach, Anjie waved a final goodbye to her Grandmother who promised to see her right after school and walked into the crowd of new faces. 

The crowd was entirely too loud for her liking and immediately she noticed that many of the children were much taller than her and that she could not see past them. The feeling of dread grew and threatened to overtake her whole chest before she noticed she had backed herself up against a wall where there were less students. Suddenly, the prospect of starting at a new school seemed all too overwhelming and Anjie considered booking it out of the gates and running down the streets to catch up with her Grandma. 

“Anjie!” called a voice from the crowd. Anjie’s ears perked up involuntarily at the sound of her name. Glassy eyes were cast upwards towards a figure rapidly approaching her who Anjie finally recognized as Lazuli. At the sight of the unshed tears, Lazuli came faster and grabbed a hand from where it had found its way tightly wrapped around Anjie’s abdomen. The coil of dread began to loosen.

“Hey, you okay?” Lazuli asked, much quieter now. Anjie nodded quickly and wiped away the tears from her eyes. 

“I’m okay now,” she reassured. “I couldn’t find you. I got scared.” Lazuli gave a lopsided smile and brought both hands to Anjie’s shoulders.

“Look! I made friends!” Lazuli exclaimed, motioning back towards two other people that Anjie finally noticed standing some distance away from them. A boy with unruly curly blonde hair and fur and a girl with cropped dark hair and tan fur slowly made their way over.

“This is Thomas and Maria.” Clearly, Lazuli had been here for some time and had begun to wander the school yard before Anjie arrived, although it often did not take Lazuli very long to make new friends. Anjie gave a polite nod and accepted the hands that were out stretched to shake hers. 

“Nice to meet you,” said the girl, Maria. 

“You too,” Anjie responded simply.

“Hey, are you from Old Halfmoon as well?” Thomas asked. “What’s the surface like? I’ve lived down here my entire life and my parents say it’s too dangerous to go up there-” Thomas kept talking and asking questions, seemingly unaware of the place he had just sent Anjie spiralling into. The anxiety that she had felt begin to leave her body suddenly slammed back into her with full force at the reminder of the surface. 

She wanted to run and hide. She wanted to punch Thomas in the face for his insensitivity. She wanted to curl up in the room she shared with Sol back in Old Halfmoon and never leave again. She wanted to do these things, but her body would not move. It was as if she had returned to the state she was in when she first woke up after the battle. Unable to move, unable to speak, unable to care about it either way. She could feel herself slipping into numbness, and she could not stop it. Someone took her hand.

“Hey? You here?” Lazuli asked softly. She had taken to asking this in the past month after she heard her mother ask Anjie once. They had both learned that if Anjie heard or saw something that reminded her too much of the surface that she would begin to slip into this numb place; Lazuli’s mother described it as her brain’s way of protecting itself from being hurt again. She asked this because, to Anjie, it was almost like she was back in that place in the middle of Old Halfmoon, face down on the ground and unconscious. It usually helped bring her back.

Anjie nodded her head weakly, still looking at the ground where her gaze had fallen. 

“I’m here,” Anjie whispered, whether to reassure Lazuli or herself she wasn’t sure anymore. 

“Do you want a hug?” Lazuli offered. She recognized that she was trying to help in the only way she knew how. Anjie thought for a moment. In reality she would really like nothing more than to hug her best friend and have everything be okay, but Lazuli had done enough for her. She should probably stop relying on her so much if she was ever going to make it here. It would be safer this way.

Anjie shook her head, “I’m fine.” She put some space between them. It hurt a little, but it was better this way. If she stopped relying on her, then she wouldn’t be hurt when she was gone. 

-

**Age 8 - 7 months after the Battle for Halfmoon**

Lazuli had no idea what she was thinking. She had thought that if she pushed Lazuli away then she wouldn’t be hurt anymore by the people close to her. Her Grandma, she couldn’t help, she lived with her. But Lazuli she only saw at school if she could help it. Anjie had staunchly refused to participate in any extracurriculars for fear that Lazuli would follow her there and they would be forced to spend more time together. 

Anjie had convinced herself she didn't need any friends anymore. But then why did it hurt so much more when she saw the look on Lazuli’s face when she yelled at her? She hadn’t meant to get angry, really. For all the distance she tried to put between them, Anjie did still care about Lazuli. It wasn’t her fault that Anjie’s entire life had been literally torn from her arms. Just when she thought she had successfully gotten Lazuli to keep away, she had come right back with a great big smile, ready to accept Anjie how she was.

It was maddening. 

So this is how Anjie found herself scaled halfway up one of the school buildings during their recess, pointedly avoiding Lazuli. She felt herself begin to cry. This isn't what she wanted. She just wanted to stop caring so she didn’t get hurt, she hadn’t wanted to hurt Lazuli in the process. But here she was, sitting on a ledge about 2 stories up, thinking about how Lazuli’s eyes teared up when Anjie had shouted that she didn’t want to be friends anymore and slapped her hand away. 

She had made her way up here because she knew that while Lazuli was agile, she was not particularly coordinated. She would not be able to follow her without great effort. Or that’s what she thought. 

Anjie’s ears perked up at the sound of shuffling coming from a window near her. The window slowly opened, and it sounded like whoever was opening it was doing so with monumental struggle. Anjie scowled and scooted further away from the window to where she hoped the person would not be able to see her. No such luck.

“Aha! I found you!” came the voice of Lazuli. Anjie heaved a sigh which came out as more of a growl.

“Leave me alone, Lazuli.” A small foot found its way onto the ledge. Anjie quirked a brow, what was she doing?

“Not until you come down,” Lazuli responded, now stepping fully onto the small ledge that was definitely not made to hold anything other than the stone gargoyle which sat perched next to Anjie. Anjie’s eyes widened as she saw Lazuli stumble briefly. 

“You’re gonna get yourself hurt! What are you doing?” Anjie asked, panicked. 

“I’ll leave you alone after you come down, but I needed to find you first,” Lazuli explained.

“You need to leave, Lazuli. We both know you’re bad at balancing,” Anjie said, looking down at a few teachers who were observing from the ground. They had clearly agreed to let Lazuli get Anjie down but it was also clear that she was not supposed to step onto the ledge as well if their worried looks were anything to go by. 

“I’m not leaving without you.” Lazuli said this with finality as she crossed her arms over her chest and took a seat next to Anjie. Anjie scowled again.

“Why not?” she questioned with vitriol. 

“Because I’m worried about you… and I miss you,” Lazuli said with fresh tears springing to her eyes. “I know you said you don’t want to be friends anymore, but I miss you anyways.” The tears made their way down Lazuli’s face as she looked at Anjie. 

“I just want my best friend back,” Lazuli explained through her sobs. Anjie looked the other direction. It wasn’t fair! Lazuli just didn’t understand why Anjie was acting the way she was and that she was doing it for them both, and she was going to get herself hurt in the process of trying to make it better. When Anjie had tried to think of an end goal for this, it had never included Lazuli getting hurt. Lazuli was all Anjie really had left of home and she wanted to keep her safe no matter what. Anjie sighed. The only way to get Lazuli down was to come down herself; she would just have to find another spot that Anjie couldn’t get to.

“If I come down, you’ll come down too?” Anjie confirmed, finally looking back towards Lazuli who busied herself with wiping the tears from her face and sniffling. Lazuli nodded eagerly. 

“Alright, I’ll come down,” Anjie sighed. Lazuli’s grin returned to her face as she stood quickly. Anjie stood a bit slower and took her time to ensure that she didn’t slip unlike Lazuli whose foot promptly slid on the collected dust that rested atop the ledge. Anjie gasped and her hand darted out in the fastest move she had made in months and steadied her and helped guide her into the window. As soon as they were inside, Anjie began checking over Lazuli for any sign of injuries relating to her slip. 

“Are you okay? You have to be more careful! One of these days-” she was cut off by a giggle. She looked up and found Lazuli laughing. She looked happier than Anjie had seen her in the past few weeks. 

“I’m okay, I’m okay. I swear,” Lazuli laughed. Anjie’s mind flooded with anger. How could she do that? Didn’t she care about her own safety? Lazuli’s laughter stopped at the sight of the anger on Anjie’s face. 

“Anjie I-” Anjie pushed her way past Lazuli and out of the classroom they had landed in and began running down the stairs. She didn’t hear the crying start again. 

**2 weeks later**

Anjie had done her best to keep her distance from Lazuli and their new friends. Lazuli had surely done her best to keep including Anjie in their activities or inviting her to come to her house and just talk like they used to, but Anjie had steadily declined every offer with growing annoyance. She had thought she had been doing well with keeping a handle on her emotions, even if they threatened to spiral out of control everytime Lazuli so much as spoke a word to her. She had thought she was doing well until it all came to a tipping point and she realized she wasn’t. 

If she thought she was in trouble after running away up to a random ledge at school and refusing to come down, that was apparently nothing compared to the trouble she was about to be in for starting an impromptu screaming match in the middle of the courtyard with Lazuli and threatening to scratch the life out of anyone who came near her. Apparently threatening people was a no go here.

And so, once again, Anjie found herself sitting next to Lazuli outside of the principal’s office in a less than amicable silence that was punctuated only by the sniffles of both girls. Anjie’s Grandmother had arrived some time ago and they could hear soft whispers of conversation coming from the crack under the door. Every so often, one girl would look over and catch the eye of the other and both would whip their head back around to look away. It was on one of these times that Lazuli apparently could not take it anymore. 

“Why do you hate me?” Lazuli whispered, barely loud enough to be heard above the shuffle of students out in the halls. Anjie’s eyes burned with tears that threatened to fall.

“I don’t,” she replied, chancing a glance at the other girl. Lazuli looked up fully now with something akin to hope in her eyes that made Anjie look away in shame. And she wasn’t lying; she loved Lazuli more than anyone besides maybe her own family, but it didn’t change what her mind told her. 

“Then why are you avoiding me?” Lazuli asked, scooting closer on the bench they sat on. Anjie turned away. She pondered how to best explain it to Lazuli so that she would understand and they could move on with their lives.

“Because…” Anjie started. She stopped herself when she felt tears threatening to fall again.

“Anjie, please, we’re best friends,” Lazuli said, timidly resting a hand on Anjie’s shoulder. Anjie flinched away. “You can tell me anything,” she sighed, bringing her hand back to her own lap.

“Because then it won’t hurt when you leave…” Anjie answered with a cracking voice and a shrug of her shoulders. She didn’t turn to look at the girl who still considered them to be best friends and chose instead to examine the linoleum flooring that covered the office space. 

“What?!” came an incredulous voice from behind her. Anjie glanced back once more to see a look that was a mix between shock and confusion written across Lazuli’s face. 

“Why would I ever leave you?” Lazuli asked, still obviously confused.

“Well, it might not be your fault. Something could happen, and we could lose New Halfmoon. Or you might just decide you don’t like me anymore and that you have better friends,” Anjie listed, ignoring or not seeing the look on Lazuli’s face shift to mild horror.

“If I make you stop liking me and we stop being friends now then it won’t hurt when it does happen,” she continued with downcast eyes. “I’m protecting us both,” she finished with another dismissive shrug. In her 8 year old mind, this was a perfectly rational explanation and she could think of some adults who would be proud of her for wording her argument so well. She expected acceptance from Lazuli and to move forward with a new understanding.

“No!” Lazuli always surprised her.

“You don’t get to make that decision for me!” Lazuli half shouted to the disapproving glare of the office secretary. 

“What?” Anjie asked. She hadn’t expected this level of pushback in her mind.

“That isn’t your choice! You’re not protecting me, you’re hurting me!” Lazuli scream whispered. Anjie’s brain short circuited. Any and every gear that had been left turning grinded to a halt. Hurting her? That was the opposite of what she was trying to do; it was what she was actively trying to prevent! She had been hurting Lazuli all this time? 

“I- I didn’t mean- I didn’t want-” It seemed as though Anjie lost her entire grip on the only language she spoke as she fumbled over her words and tried to file away this new information into the previously neat folders in her mind. It was as if Lazuli had come into her head and told her that everything she knew and believed was incorrect and she was just left to deal with the chaos. 

But that wasn’t true. Sure Lazuli had just waltzed on into her mind and informed her that her entire mindset was skewed and she had thrown apart the folders that held this information, but here she was, also willing to help organize the chaos. 

Lazuli took the chance and closed the remaining space between them, wrapping Anjie in the tightest hug she had gotten from her since she had been rescued. Anjie fell limply into her arms as Lazuli ran her hand up and down her back. In this moment, Anjie realized just how much she missed her best friend. She realized that Lazuli was right, she was just hurting them and no matter how much she pushed the other girl away, it would never make her care less for her. The overwhelming urge to just be close to her friend again took over and she returned the embrace.

For her part, the secretary looked shocked that the girls who had been ready to fight in the courtyard not 30 minutes ago had made up so quickly. 

“I didn’t mean to- I’m sorry, Lazuli. I’m sorry, I didn’t wanna hurt you,” Anjie cried into her friend’s chest. Lazuli ran her hand through Anjie’s normally unruly hair that had been tampered down from lack of care.

“It’s okay. Just-” Lazuli pulled away and tried to look Anjie in the eye. Anjie complied reluctantly. “Promise me you’ll be my friend again?” Lazuli looked even more hopeful than she had before, and Anjie finally let go of the last bit of hesitance that she had. She nodded tearfully and pulled Lazuli back into a hug as the door to the principal’s office opened to reveal the equally shocked faces of the principal and Anjie’s Grandmother. 

They would be alright.

-

**16 years old - 8 years after the Battle for Halfmoon**

Years had passed since Anjie and Lazuli’s apparent feud and they had taken great strides to reinforce their friendship. They were not without their troubles, mind you, but who really was? They were best friends again and everyone was well aware of it. You could rarely find one without the other, always dragging each other across school or the town and speaking at speeds that only the other understood. They were still good friends with Thomas and Maria but those friendships could never hold a candle to the lifelong relationship that Anjie and Lazuli shared.

After making up with Lazuli, Anjie had noticeably changed. At the recommendation of her principal, she began to see a therapist as many people from Old Halfmoon had begun to. Finally, at age 16, she felt like she had really begun to understand the events that surrounded her childhood and why she acted the way she had. 

Some progress had certainly been made in the realm of self discovery, and after a particularly interesting unit in school and a reevaluation on how she looked at her best friend, Anjie had steadily begun to develop feelings for Lazuli but decided not to act on them so as not to sacrifice the progress that they had made. Now, the pair were sat on Anjie’s bed after having just finished their schoolwork for the day, and it was definitely on the forefront of her mind. 

“Like, he’s cool and I’m glad we’re friends, but the way he acts about it sometimes is just terrible, you know?” Lazuli rambled, glancing over at Anjie for confirmation. Anjie blinked.

“Wait, what?” She had definitely been paying too close of attention to things other than what Lazuli had been talking about, and she had completely missed the point of whatever had gotten her upset. 

“Thomas. The way he acts about his crush on you?” Lazuli attempted to explain as if it were common sense.

“Wait, his what now?” Anjie’s brain skidded to a halt. There was no way that was true, Thomas was one of their best friends!  _ Well I would be a hypocrite if I said we can’t like our best friends.. _ she thought. 

“You didn’t know?” Lazuli asked with a hint of incredulity. “Literally everyone knows!” she finished as she waved her hands in the air exasperatedly. 

“Not me,” Anjie mumbled to herself. “How is he terrible about it?” she wondered aloud. Lazuli made a disgusted noise.

“The way he looks at you! It- It’s like you’re not a person, like you’re just a goal to him.” She huffed and crossed her arms to stare at the wall. 

“Oh, please,” Anjie began, then she stopped. Suddenly a few things made a lot more sense. 

“Is this why you dragged me away from him the other day?” Anjie asked. Lazuli made a few sputtering noises before hugging her arms tighter to her chest and pouting. 

“It is! Aww, Lazuli are you jealous?” She was teasing and she knew it, but some part of her mind told her to be careful before she got into territory she couldn’t come back from.

“Wha- I’m not- you- no! You’re- ugh!” Lazuli turned and faced the wall, looking away from Anjie who was busy giggling at her friend’s reaction.

“It’s not like it matters anyways, I didn’t even like boys in the first place. Besides I like someone else,” Anjie cited with a dismissive wave. Lazuli’s face, still out of view of Anjie, sparkled with hope before she trained her face to a careful neutral expression and turned back to her friend. 

“Oh?” As if only realizing her mistake, Anjie’s face stilled before she narrowed her eyes at Lazuli.

“Oh no, I’m not talking. I said too much already,” Anjie said, now mimicking Lazuli’s earlier position. 

“Anjiiieeee,” Lazuli pleaded with big eyes. Anjie remained faced away.

“Anjie, we tell eachother everything! It can’t be that bad,” Lazuli offered, poking at Anjie’s back. 

“I don’t have to tell you anything,” came her voice that was muffled by a pillow. 

“Okay, but you usually do anyway.” At the sound of silence, Lazuli relented.

“Alright then, keep your secrets. I get it, I’m scared to talk about mine too.” With an attempt at nonchalance, Lazuli settled back into her spot, observing but ignoring how Anjie’s upright ear swiveled back towards her. 

“Wait, your what?” Anjie questioned, knowing exactly what she was talking about. Lazuli gave her a sly look.

“What? You wanna know?” she asked with a smirk. Anjie carefully considered her friend for a moment before flushing with a blush and huffing.

“No, because I respect your privacy and that you don’t want to talk about it.” Lazuli raised an eyebrow. “But if you do want to talk about it I will obviously listen.” she finished with an air of false confidence. In reality her brain was in the middle of looping  _ Oh no! What if she likes someone else!  _ , _ If she likes someone else then she’ll leave me for them!  _ , and  _ I finally did it; I finally drove her off!! _

Oblivious since she was in the middle of her own meltdown, Anjie did not notice the apprehensive look on Lazuli’s face or the contemplative silence that had blanketed the room. 

“Haha um… what would you say ifIsaiditwasactuallyyou?” Lazulirushed, suddenly very interested in attempting to burn holes in the wall with her eyes. Anjie was sure that if Lazuli’s eyes were not capable of such a feat, the combined heat of both of their blushes would likely do the trick. Rather than voice this thought, Anjie’s train of thought stopped and she gaped at her friend. Lazuli chanced a glance over and caught sight of her expression and looked panicked for a second.

“Listen, I get it. Sorry if I just made this super awkward. I get that you don’t like me back but I felt like you should know. It wasn’t really fair to you if I didn’t, and I’m really sorry if I ruined-” Lazuli’s panicked ramble was cut off by something covering her mouth. It took half a second before she realized that the something was actually Anjie’s face and that Anjie was kissing her. She had barely had time to actually kiss her back before Anjie backed away with an unreadable expression. The pair sat wordless for a moment.

“You know, it’s really okay that you don’t like me back, but you don’t need to tease me,” Lazuli grumbled with a hint of annoyance. “Or, like, take advantage of it.” Her annoyance was short-lived as Anjie began to laugh.

“Oh you stupid silly girl, you were the reason I ever figured out I liked girls!” Anjie explained with a smile. 

“Oh.  _ Oh. _ ” Lazuli openly stared at Anjie now, wide eyed in amazement before she broke her trance. Lazuli threw her arms around Anjie’s neck and dragged her down on top of her as both of them began laughing. After a few minutes of simply rolling back and forth to avoid the teasing pokes of the other, the girls settled once more.

“So you like me?” asked Lazuli.

“Yes.”

“And I like you.” 

“That’s what you said.” 

“So are we, like, girlfriends?” 

“Do you want to be?” 

“Yes.” 

“Then yes,” Anjie said with an even wider smile than before. Lazuli stared upwards in amazement. 

“Can I kiss you again?” she asked meekly, as if expecting a no. Anjie giggled a bit to herself before leaning down again. This time, when they separated, it was Lazuli’s turn to laugh before her expression changed to something of a stiff imitation of seriousness. 

“We should probably go on a date then, huh?” 

“If that’s what you would like” 

“Do you want to?” 

“Are you asking?” 

“Yes?” 

“Then yes.” 

“Cool!” 

Although a lot had just changed in the last ten minutes, the girls continued talking as if almost nothing had changed. The exception, of course, that they were no longer attempting to keep their feelings to themselves out of fear of rejection from the other. It was not long before Anjie’s Grandmother called them out for dinner. Lazuli had stayed over for dinner often and this was by no means a new experience for her but she still stopped dead in her tracks with a worried expression.

“What?” Anjie questioned, worried herself now by the sudden pause.

“Do we tell her? How would she even react? Oh my god, do we tell my mom?” Lazuli asked, beginning to wring her hands as she did when she was nervous. Anjie set a hand on top of hers to still them.

“Hey we don’t have to if we don’t want to yet. If you want, we could do something like a trial run with my Grandma and see how she reacts. Then you can decide whether or not you want to tell your mom.” Anjie suggested. “Are you worried about how they’ll react?” 

Lazuli sighed, “I’m not worried that they’ll be upset or something; they said we couldn’t date until we were 16 and I’m 17 already so technically we’re following the rules.” She still looked nervous.

“And?” Anjie prodded.

“What if they don’t let us hang out as much anymore?” Lazuli finished, tearing up at the idea that they wouldn’t see each other as much.

“It won’t come to that,” Anjie comforted. “They see how we get when we don’t see each other for a while, and I doubt they want to deal with that for a longer period of time.” Lazuli sniffed and nodded, her eyes finally drying. 

The pair headed into the kitchen for dinner and helped set the table while Anjie’s Grandmother brought the food out. For the most part, they acted mostly the same as they normally would, but the tipping point may have come when they giggled a bit too much to themselves or when Anjie flung a bit of potato at Lazuli and instead of grimacing she just smiled. 

“Is everything alright girls?” asked her Grandmother. Both girls stilled immediately and glanced at each other nervously. Anjie’s Grandmother quirked an eyebrow at this strange behavior but made no move to comment on it.

“I’ll tell you later?” Anjie offered, hoping it was enough to drop the subject. Her Grandmother simply nodded and returned to her food with a knowing smile. It was the happiest she had seen Anjie in many years, and she was not about to spoil it. 

Some time later, it came time for Lazuli to leave. She lived just down the street from Anjie and often walked back by herself, but today her mother had forced Jack to leave the house and take a walk and they would both be waiting for her when she left the house. Anjie and Lazuli stood on the porch of the house and shared their typical goodbye hug. From her position facing the street, Anjie could see Lazuli’s mom and older sibling approaching. Lazuli pulled away and looked at her with a sheepish expression. 

“Can I, um, kiss you before I leave?” 

Anjie paused. “Your mom will see,” she said as she gestured towards the approaching figures. Lazuli looked back at them and then faced again towards Anjie and shrugged. 

“That’s fine with me,” she said with a lopsided grin. Anjie chuckled to herself before shaking her head in disbelief. She glanced back at the pair that was nearly to her house and then back to Lazuli. 

“Okay,” she conceded. Even given the fact that they had only kissed a few times, Anjie was sure she would never tire of it. It was over far too soon for her liking and she opened her eyes to the only marginally surprised faces of Lazuli’s family who she waved at with a nervous smile. Lazuli looked completely unbothered as she made her way down the steps with a dopey grin towards her family. Anjie waved to them one last time before slipping back inside her house. Her Grandmother was sitting in a chair in the living room with a full view of the open window.

“Is now time for that talk?” she asked with another knowing smile. Anjie laughed and nervously rubbed the back of her neck while nodding. 

-

A week had passed and both girls were relieved to find that not only were their respective families more than happy to hear the news, they were actively expecting it. They had promised not to treat the other party any differently than usual with the exception that they got teasing privileges. They had also promised not to tell anyone else until the girls were ready since news travelled very fast in such a small community. The girls waited a couple weeks and then decided to at least have their first date before telling any of their friends so they could at least enjoy that in peace before the news got out.

The Monday after their date, they new couple walked to school together, teasing and hanging off of one another as usual. They met up with Maria and Thomas before class, oblivious to the quick side glances the other two were giving each other. 

“Sooo… What’s got you two so clingy today?” Maria asked with a twinkle in her eyes. Thomas looked up with far less amusement. The girls seemed to have an entire conversation with their eyes before Anjie shrugged and they both looked forward again. 

“We’re dating now!” Lazuli explained with excitement to the enthusiastic squeals from Maria.

“Oh, I’m so happy for you guys! I knew it was coming, I’m so glad you finally figured it out!” Maria exclaimed before taking both girls in a tight hug which they returned with much laughter. 

“It seems everyone knew but us,” Anjie remarked, finally looking towards Thomas who had not moved. He was looking on with a disgruntled expression which soon shifted to an easily recognizable anger. Maria and Lazuli finally turned to face him with looks of confusion and annoyance respectively. Thomas, who throughout the entire exchange had stood stationary several feet away, began to slowly march over to the rest of the group, shouting.

“What do you mean you’re dating? How could you do this? You both knew that I loved Anjie!” he shouted, now scarcely a few feet away.

“Thomas calm down-” Anjie attempted.

“Back off, Thomas,” Lazuli interjected, putting herself between Anjie and the now rapidly approaching Thomas who had drawn a fist back. Sometime down the line, Anjie would wonder why he had chosen to use a fist rather than swipe at Lazuli, though she supposes that would have landed him in much more serious trouble. It was not as if he had considered that when he chose to knock Lazuli square in her jaw, sending her skidding into a crouch a foot back. She was also sure that he didn’t consider it when Lazuli growled and pounced back on him either, returning the attack with equal force. In the moment, Anjie herself didn’t bother to ponder these ideas either. In the moment, she yelled for Maria to pull Thomas back so she could get Lazuli off as well as a crowd rapidly formed around the brawl. 

Distantly, Anjie could hear some teachers trying to make their way through the crowd to separate the teens but she knew she couldn’t wait for them to push past the pack that had descended on the sight. She registered that Maria had hands on Thomas who looked like he was seconds away from calling mercy. Anjie wrapped both hands around the arm that Lazuli had just reared back and attempted to pull her away from Thomas.

In some part of her mind, as she took back her arm and elbowed whoever was behind her, Lazuli must have thought that the person pulling her away was some stranger, some teacher who had bothered to get in the middle of their argument. It wasn’t until she heard Anjie’s cry of pain and the gasp of the crowd that she realized that the person she had just nailed right in the face was her girlfriend who was now clutching her face as red streaks steadily made their way past her hands. Immediately, Lazuli let go of Thomas, panting, and tried to make her way over to Anjie. 

“Wait- Shit, Anjie. I’m sorry-” She quickly dropped to her knees in front of the other girl and rested her hands on her shoulders. Anjie, who was now doubled over on her knees, quickly pushed the other girl away with a whimper, not wanting to exacerbate the injury further or get any of her blood on Lazuli. Lazuli, who was not privy to these facts, did not get a chance to back away further as she was quickly pulled back by a teacher who began hollering, undoubtedly telling Lazuli off for starting a fight even though she had not seen the initial argument go down. Lazuli made no attempt to listen, as she was far more preoccupied with watching another teacher lean down to help Anjie off the ground and guide her to the nurse’s office as blood dripped onto her light blue shirt. 

All three students were carted off to the office, Anjie quickly being separated from the other two to head towards the back of the building where the nurse was. Lazuli found herself in a very similar position as she had been once when she was 9 and she and Anjie had been the ones fighting in the school yard except now she was sitting across from a boy who refused to look her in the eyes. She let out a sigh and she let her head drop backwards against the wall behind her as she listened to the phone call that was undoubtedly someone calling her mother to tell her about the fight. 

Back in the nurse’s office, Anjie flinched as the nurse set her nose back in place and bandaged the area. She had been told that, due to the force of the impact, she was probably lucky that it was just broken and not something worse. The nurse retrieved an ice pack and informed her that they would call her guardian to come pick her up. Anjie nodded slowly, ears still ringing and tried to focus on anything other than the fact that she could feel probably the worst headache of her life growing. She attempted to recall the events that had led her here but the most that she could remember clearly was trying to pull Lazuli back and then a searing pain. She groaned and lied down carefully. 

Some time later, the nurse returned to let her know that her Grandma was there and that she could meet her in the office lobby. Anjie stood and grabbed her backpack from its spot on the ground and walked out towards the rest of the office while shielding her eyes from the fluorescent lights that lined the ceilings. As she approached her Grandma, Anjie could hear someone call her name through the worried mumblings of her guardian. It was followed quickly by a gruff adult voice telling the person to sit down, and as Anjie was led out the door, she looked back to see Lazuli only a few seconds away from ignoring the directions of the teacher and bolting after her. The doors closed behind her.

Anjie went straight to the doctor’s who ensured that her nose was properly set and gave her an enchanted compress that would remain cold. They informed her that her injury would likely heal in a few weeks as long as she took proper care of it and that there would be no lasting effects. They taught her how to pad the area to avoid further pain and gave her a note stating that she could return to school and was free to visit the school nurse whenever she felt the need. 

Anjie was glad in some ways that they allowed her to return to school right away; it seemed like she would have quite a few things to talk to Lazuli about. The next day, Anjie returned to school where she was immediately fawned over by Maria who greeted her at the gates. She had tried to wait for Lazuli on their street but it seemed like the other girl was going to leave the house too late to make it on time so Anjie scrapped her idea about talking before school and headed out on her own. Eventually she was forced to scrap the idea of having any sort of conversation during school that day as Maria informed her that both Lazuli and Thomas had been suspended from school for the fight. Granted, Lazuli was only out for one day since she was not the one who started the fight, and according to Maria, she probably wouldn’t have been in that much trouble if she hadn’t broken Anjie’s nose. Somewhat saddened, she went about her day, hoping to see Lazuli tomorrow.

The next day came and Anjie once again waited for Lazuli outside of her house. She had only been standing for a few minutes when the door to Lazuli’s house opened and they caught sight of each other. Even from her distance, Anjie could hear the breath of relief that Lazuli let out before she booked it down the sidewalk to Anjie. Seeing her girlfriend’s speed, Anjie quickly stuck her arms out in front of her to halt the oncoming force. Lazuli stopped short, a few feet away with a pained expression, looking like a kicked puppy who was ready to be punished for the slightest wrong move. Noting this, Anjie spoke.

“Hey, It’s okay. I just didn’t want you to run into me,” she explained with her best attempt at a smile. Lazuli’s expression immediately dropped to her previous relief as she approached much more slowly and carefully wrapped her arms around Anjie in a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize it was you. I was just so mad, and I didn’t know and I’m sorry. I messed up so bad-” Anjie pulled away from the hug and placed her hands on Lazuli’s cheeks which were now streaked with tears. She gently wiped the tears away. 

“Hey, it’s all okay. It’ll heal in a few weeks, and I know you didn’t mean to.” Anjie moved her hands down to rest carefully on Lazuli’s arms.

“You gotta learn to control these things though,” Anjie laughed good naturedly. Lazuli let out a whisper of a chuckle.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know, I forgive you.” Both girls smiled at each other and leaned in before Lazuli jerked away slightly. Anjie tilted her head in confusion before Lazuli chuckled again.

“Shit, I gotta be real careful now, huh?” she wondered aloud as she scratched at her head. Anjie laughed in full before pulling Lazuli down for a tender but careful kiss before they headed off to school. 

Later that day, Anjie learned that Lazuli had been grounded for 3 weeks as a result of the fight. She mentioned that it was going to be 4 before she explained to her mom that she was defending Anjie and her mother took a week off. Lazuli said she suspected it was because she was secretly proud but still needed to set an example. Thus, any communication that the girls had outside of school was removed for the time being and Lazuli was not allowed to go anywhere outside of school hours. The girls were saddened by this but resigned to their fate and tried to be with each other as much as they could throughout the school day. For the most part, Thomas avoided them when he did return to school, and he seemed satisfied enough to brood away in his corner for the day. Maria remained chipper as ever even if she did voice her disappointment that Thomas would not apologize and was avoiding them. 

Eventually a day came that Lazuli once again did not leave her house, and Anjie thought nothing of it since Lazuli was not a morning person and would often miss her alarm and end up showing up to school still half asleep and barely in time for the bell. However, when Lazuli did not show up for school at all that day, Anjie’s first instinct was to send her a text asking where she was before she remembered that Lazuli could not respond because of her grounding. With great annoyance, she flopped down next to Maria on the ground at lunch. For the most part, she was content to sit with her other friend and discuss the latest gossip of the day, but her gaze continued to be drawn across the yard to where Thomas sat alone at a table watching the people around him move. Eventually, Maria followed her gaze and gave her a questioning look.

“I should probably go talk to him, huh?” Anjie asked. Maria looked unsure as she shrugged.

“I don’t know. I’m a little sad that he decided that all those years of friendship meant nothing to him, but also at this point, I’m not sure if he even wants to be our friend anymore. If you want to talk to him, go ahead, but just be careful and don’t let him say anything stupid to you.” Maria looked at her with a protective glare, any upset in her expression clearly intended for Thomas and not Anjie. 

Anjie sighed and stood, “I’m going to. If he tries to say anything bad I’ll just walk away. I’m not particularly in a mood to put up with any of his garbage anymore.” she dusted off her pants and Maria gave her an encouraging thumbs up as she crossed the school yard. As she approached him, Thomas seemed entirely focused on the food in front of him, but Anjie knew from years of being friends with him that the particular flick of his tail meant that he knew exactly who was coming.

“Hey,” Anjie said simply, sliding into the seat across from him. Without looking up, he muttered, “Hey.” Anjie looked around a bit before talking again.

“Why are you avoiding us?” she asked, now looking directly at him as he raised his head in apparent surprise.

“I yelled at you and beat up your girlfriend in the middle of the courtyard, Anjie. I didn’t think you guys would want anything to do with me,” he said, looking back down at his food. 

Anjie scoffed, “You hardly beat her up, she had you pinned.” Thomas grimaced but did not raise his eyes. Anjie sighed.

“Look, I know the principal made you apologize to Lazuli because that’s how they think it works. You make someone apologize whether they mean it or not and the problem goes away,” she ranted as she waved her hand dismissively, intending to continue. 

“I  _ am  _ sorry.” he said, now looking up.

“Then I’d appreciate it if you acted like it,” she said with a stern glare. Thomas looked surprised before his expression changed to that of genuine remorse. 

“I really am. At the time I felt like Lazuli had betrayed me or something because she knew how I felt about you and she decided to date you anyways knowing that.Everyone knew that I was practically in love with you, and it hurt.” 

“Did you ever stop to consider what I wanted, Thomas?” Anjie asked exasperatedly. “Did you ever stop to think that I’ve actually only liked girls for some time now?”

He seemed slightly confused at this knowledge and finally gave up on the illusion of picking at his food. “I didn’t know that. I’m sorry I didn’t consider anyone but myself, and I’m sorry that I lashed out the way I did.” Anjie let out a relieved sigh, partly at the fact that he had acknowledged his mistakes and at the fact that he had apologized and it seemed genuine.

“You know, I’m not the only person you should apologize to.” 

Thomas grimaced once more at the thought of facing Lazuli, “I already-”

“A real one, Thomas. An apology doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t willing to change your behavior,” Anjie explained, proud of herself for remembering the thing that her Papa had always told her. 

“You’re right. I will. I’m sorry,” he said finally. Anjie let herself relax and enjoyed the silence for a moment.

“You know, I don’t think you were ever really in love with me,” she said absentmindedly, not even really expecting a response.

“What?” he questioned, looking far more confused that she had expected him to look.

“Yeah, I mean, we’re really young. I’m not sure we can really understand the full extent of what love even really means,” she shrugged. Thomas looked contemplatively at his food.

“You and Lazuli seem to have it down,” was all he said. Now it was Anjie’s turn to look confused before she shook her head.

“We’ve only been dating for, like, a month. We’re just so close because of, you know, shared trauma or whatever it was that our psychology teacher taught us.” Thomas shrugged.

“Well then you’ve got a good start at least. You’re probably right, we’re too young to know.” He looked back up one final time towards Anjie. “I’m really sorry. I promise I’ll be better.” Anjie smiled and held out a fist.

“Friends again?”

He looked at her hand and then bumped it with his own fist, “Friends again.”

-

Later that day, Anjie informed her Grandma that Lazuli was absent and that she was going to check on her and drop off her homework for the day so she didn’t fall behind. Her Grandma agreed but reminded her to respect the rules of her grounding to which Anjie assured her that she would. 

As Anjie approached the door, she grew nervous. What if Lazuli had gotten in more trouble and had gotten grounded for longer? What if she got really hurt and had ended up in the hospital? What if Lazuli’s mom didn’t let her see her? What if no one answered at all? Her fears were cut short as she knocked on the door and Lazuli’s mother opened the door. 

“Oh, Anjie! I didn’t expect to see you today. How are you?” she asked with a smile, oblivious to Anjie’s internal monologue.

“Um, I’m fine. Lazuli wasn’t at school today so I wanted to check on her and drop off homework,” Anjie explained, holding up some paper for Lazuli.

“Oh wonderful. Come in, dear. She’s in her room, but be careful, she’s got a cold.” Lazuli’s mother walked back into the hallway that led to her office and left Anjie to navigate the house. That wasn’t a problem; she had spent probably just as much time in this house as she had in her Grandma’s house. She walked down the adjacent hall to a familiar door and knocked gently on the wood.

“Mom, I said I’m fine. Can I please just sleep?” came a muffled voice from inside the room. Anjie giggled quietly to herself and considered teasing her girlfriend by imitating her mother but decided against it.

“Lazuli, it’s me,” she said, not able to keep the amusement out of her voice. A loud crash resounded on the other side of the door that Anjie deduced was probably Lazuli’s body falling out of bed in her haste and a series of chuffles before the lock clicked and the door swung open.

All in all, Anjie had seen Lazuli look worse. There had been that time she had caught the flu after refusing to leave a cold pool of water when she was 6 and the time she’d had pneumonia and ended up in the hospital for almost a week when she was 13. The only other time she had seen Lazuli look this miserable was right after the Battle for Halfmoon, but Anjie didn’t care to think about that right now, she had a girlfriend to tend to.

Despite herself, Anjie chuckled a bit at the sight. Lazuli’s hair was sticking straight up on the sides where it was clear she had been tossing and turning for the better part of the day in bed. Behind her, Anjie could see a pile of tissues that had just missed the trashcan next to her bed.

“Well hello to you too,” Anjie mused with a tile of the head and a smile. For all her misery, Lazuli lit up at the sight of her girlfriend and moved to hug her before she stopped herself. She let out a dry groan that left her coughing into her elbow.

“Sorry, can’t hug. ‘M sick,” she explained drowsily. 

“Yeah, I see that,” Anjie said as she raised a hand to Lazuli’s forehead. She wasn’t exactly sure how hot was too hot, but Lazuli seemed to relax into the touch and that was all that mattered.

“I brought your homework.” Anjie offered the papers to Lazuli with an apologetic smile and the latter scoffed at the papers before setting them on the dresser next to her. 

“Sorry, needed an excuse to come check on you,” Anjie shrugged. Lazuli gave her best approximation of a smile before her face scrunched up and she turned back towards her room to let out a large sneeze. She turned back with a tissue.

“Sorry,” she muttered. Anjie shook her head.

“You don’t need to apologize, you need to rest.” Anjie led Lazuli back to the bed, careful to avoid getting breathed on too hard or touching any of the dirty tissues that she now realized littered most of the space. As Lazuli laid back down, Anjie brought the covers up and sat on the edge of the bed. Looking at the door, she had the thought that she really should be leaving, Lazuli was technically still grounded and was about to pass out anyways, but she had something to tell her first. 

“Hey, I talked to Thomas today.” Lazuli perked up at this and tried to sit up before Anjie pushed her back against the bed.

“What? What did he say? Did he say something because if he did I’ll fight him again, I don’t care if I get suspended again,” Lazuli threatened. Anjie shook her head.

“No, actually, he apologized.” Lazuli seemed surprised. “And even if he did I wouldn’t let you fight him again because you don’t need to be grounded for another month, silly,” Anjie finished, brushing the hair off of Lazuli’s forehead. Lazuli seemed contemplative for a moment and searched Anjie’s face for any sign that she might be lying before she sighed. She knew that Anjie wouldn’t lie to her even if she had a good reason to.

“He wants to apologize to you too, for real this time,” she added. Lazuli scrunched her face up again, but rather than sneezing she just looked disgruntled towards Anjie. Anjie, noting this, brought her hand to cup Lazuli’s cheek.

“Please? Give it a shot? For me?” she asked with wide eyes. She knew Lazuli would give in to the eyes. Lazuli seemed to struggle with herself for a moment before relenting and sighing again.

“Okay, I’ll talk to him when I’m better. But that’s gonna be at least a couple more days,” she said with a pout. Anjie beamed at her and placed a kiss on her forehead. Lazuli seemed to relax at this.

“Thanks. I appreciate it.” They smiled at each other briefly before Anjie stood and grabbed her bag from where she had left it on the floor.

“I have to go. You need rest, and I promised I wouldn’t stay long because you’re still grounded.” 

Lazuli looked sad at the news of her departure and spoke. “Just wait until I’m better I’m gonna kiss the shit out of you,” she mumbled as she nestled down further under the covers. Anjie laughed a breathy chuckle and placed another kiss on her girlfriend’s forehead before heading for the door.

“Take care of yourself, I’ll see you tomorrow.” Anjie heard a muffled voice call, “Okay, see you tomorrow. Bye.” and she closed the door.

-

**Age 18 - 10 years after the Battle for Halfmoon**

Of all the things that Anjie had ever done that she had considered stupid, she had never gotten this bad. She had once tried to help her dads pick out an outfit for Sol and had accidentally dumped the entire outfit into the toilet next to where she was being changed. She had once overestimated the distance she could jump and tumbled off of the highest part of the play structure in Old Halfmoon, much to the amusement of her younger sister who she thought probably just enjoyed seeing her move at such high speeds. She had once broken an expensive looking piece of dishware that belonged to her Grandmother and just swept it up and hoped that she wouldn’t notice. But of all these things she had ever done, this might have been the worst.

She and Lazuli had been dating for almost two years at this point, and she had gone and fallen completely in love with her 3 months in. Now, she knew they were young, she’d had a whole conversation about it with Lazuli where they agreed that they would be careful not to do too much too fast, but that was before Anjie realized that it meant waiting for a long time before she could tell her girlfriend that she loved her. There were quite a few times where she had caught herself about to say it before she quickly swerved and changed it to something like “You’re incredible” or “You’re wonderful.” But one person could only take so much before they exploded and Anjie decided that she was ready to give up any pretense she still had and just say it when it felt right. 

There was one day when they had decided to have a picnic in a nearby park and the lights of the cave had hit Lazuli just right as she was laughing, and Anjie was so overcome with emotion and had just opened her mouth to say it when someone from school walked by and greeted them. Trying her best to stay polite, Anjie had waved back, internally bemoaning the fact that the moment got ruined. However, she refused to let it ruin their time and they continued on with their day.

Another time, they had just been lying in Anjie’s bed, with the door cracked at the request of her Grandmother, and watching a movie. They had started a popcorn fight that had ended up covering most of Anjie’s room, and they had paused the movie to clean it up so that no one would complain again when they rolled onto a piece of popcorn. Lazuli had just finished picking up the last of it and dumping it in the trash when she walked over a kissed Anjie’s forehead and whispered, “All done.” It was something so simple and yet it filled Anjie with such joy that she once again opened her mouth to say it when her door creaked open with a knock and her Grandmother asked if they were hungry. She was frustrated, but she was also not about to take it out on her Grandma. 

The last time, they were camping in the backyard to Anjie’s house. It could hardly be called camping since they were literally right next to the house, but it was fun anyways. They had pulled snacks and blankets out to their little tent and made a game of who could stay up longer. Usually the winner of that was Lazuli since her tendency to stay up late was more often than not the reason she was so grumpy in the morning. In an effort to stay awake, they were talking about everything and nothing as they huddled closer together in the cool faux nighttime of the cave. Lazuli had made a joke about the face that their older sibling had made when she had pranked them earlier that week and had made an effort to recreate the face. She really only looked like she was holding in gas, but it had made Anjie laugh and that was all that she cared about. A brief silence followed as the pair looked at eachother. Just as Anjie went to open her mouth she was interrupted by none other than the very girl she was trying to confess to.

“I love you.”

“Oh, you asshole,” Anjie remarked, pushing Lazuli away by her chest. Lazuli’s face, which had looked completely smitten up until this moment, fell into something of despair. Anjie waved her hands in front of her.

“That’s not what I meant! I meant that I was just about to say that! I can’t believe you beat me to it; I’ve been trying to do that for weeks!” Anjie exclaimed as she threw her hands upwards in exasperation. Lazuli soon looked relieved as she pulled a still sulking Anjie back into her chest with a chuckle. 

“So you’re saying you love me too?” Lazuli asked with an air of false confidence doing little to conceal the still present worry in her voice. Anjie reached up and flicked her ear.

“Yeah, yeah, I love you too,” Anjie snarked, making no further attempts to tease and instead choosing to cover as much of Lazuli’s body with her own as she could. Lazuli chuckled and accepted her fate and simply held her closer.

-

**Age 24 - 17 years after the Battle for Halfmoon - Week 39 of pregnancy**

Lazuli wiped her forehead and took off her gloves. She had started working full time at the local blacksmith’s a few years ago when she had finished her apprenticeship. Mostly her work was creating updated armor for the royal guards or fixing the broken weapons that had been used a little too hard in training. She had been incredibly excited to have the job in the first place because it paid enough that Anjie could simply not work and stay home if she chose to which, due to her being incredibly pregnant right now, was probably the better choice. 

Lazuli quickly cleaned up her shop and tucked away the remaining projects that she was working on, excited to be home with her wife. She waved a goodbye to her boss and headed out the door. She had also been happy to take the job because it was only a 15 minute walk from the house that she and Anjie now shared. She trotted happily up to the door, fully prepared to spend the rest of the day cuddling her wife and getting her all the weird food combos that she could think of and mentally preparing herself to go to the shop the next day to stock up again. 

She stepped through the doorframe and called, “Anjie, I’m home!” It was more for Anjie than anything else since Lazuli knew she became easily startled after the battle they had experienced as children and she dreaded again being on the receiving end of the gut punch she had gotten the last time she had snuck up on Anjie. She both chuckled and winced at the memory before she realized that she had not gotten an answer. Usually Anjie would call out what room she was in so that hugs and kisses could be promptly delivered, but today there was no answer. 

Lazuli absently wondered if Anjie had gone out for a walk before she recalled her wife swearing off taking walks without help since she often even had trouble navigating their house without proper support.

“Anjie?” Lazuli called, now a bit worried. The first call should have been enough to wake her up if she had been asleep. She was answered with a barely heard whimper from the kitchen. Lazuli dropped everything she was holding and sprinted to the source of the noise and found Anjie bracing herself on a chair with a white knuckled grip, still standing but looking as if she were ready to fall given a stiff breeze. Lazuli immediately ran to her side and went to guide her into a chair before Anjie shook her head sharpley. 

“Don’t make me sit down. This kid’s coming out right now, and this is the only way I’m not passing out,” Anjie gasped.

“What, now?” Lazuli gaped, only now noticing the sizable puddle that had formed on the floor. 

“Yes, now!” Anjie growled through clenched teeth. 

“But we’re still two weeks out from the due date! How-”

“Lazuli! Either help me get to a place where I can have this baby or find someone who can!” Anjie snipped. She had no intention of actually hurting her wife’s feelings but she had been in early labor for the better part of 9 hours now, and she was really beginning to regret not saying anything sooner. For her part though, Lazuli looked unaffected by her wife’s comment and nodded with determination before quickly calling their older sibling who had agreed to drive them to the doctor’s when the time came. 

Thankfully, they got there in a reasonable amount of time and everything went smoothly. Well, as smoothly as it could go. It still hurt alot, but baby Tao was delivered safely as could be even despite the mother’s concerns over him being born earlier than anticipated. The doctors assured them that he was in perfect health and that babies knew when to be born. They accepted the explanation with a little hesitance but chose instead to marvel at the newborn.

“He’s so tiny,” Anjie remarked.

“I was definitely never this small,” Lazuli added, sitting as best as she could on the bed with her wife with an arm gently placed around her shoulders.

Anjie snorted, “Oh definitely not. That’s why you’re so strong now.” She playfully nudged her wife’s arm. 

“Aww, you think I’m strong?” Lazuli teased. 

Anjie chuckled, “Don’t let it go to your head.”

-

**Age 31 - 24 years after the Battle for Halfmoon - 2 years after the defeat of Horde Prime**

The day that Anjie received the letter stating that her sister was alive, had been raised in the Horde, and was looking for her was the day that she started believing in miracles again. A palace guard had arrived at her door, and if Lazuli had not already been with her at the time she would have thought that something had gone wrong at her work and that she was hurt. But Lazuli was behind her as they handed her a paper with a grand official looking wax seal on it and bid her a good day. The pair looked on curiously as they read the paper, thankfully only a few tears falling onto the paper as they finished reading. Immediately, Anjie rushed to her Grandmother’s house and told her the news as soon as she opened the door. 

For the night, the family slept well. 

The day that Anjie responded to the letter, she was excited. She had little idea of who her sister had become. Only that she had made her way to Old Halfmoon and learned of their family through the recorded holograms. She knew that she went by the name ‘Catra’ now and that she had played some role in the ending of the war with the Horde. She knew she had a girlfriend and that she would meet her in Bright Moon. She wanted to know everything.

The day that Anjie departed from her family to see her sister for the first time in 24 years, she was anxious. She kissed Tao and Clementine goodbye and promised that she would be back in a few days. They were equally as excited as each other at the prospect of having a new aunt who they had only heard about in hushed recountings of a horrific past. She hugged her wife and Grandmother who both begged her to stay safe on the surface, knowing full well that she was to be the first citizen to emerge from the cave in over two decades. She assured them that she would be as safe as she could be and that she would be back in a few days time. She met the council member and the palace guard who would be escorting her to Bright Moon at the limits of the city, and she exited the cave for the first time since the Battle for Halfmoon. 

They arrived in the grand city around midday to the apparent marvel of the city’s citizens. They were met at the gates to the castle by a Bright Moon palace guard who led them through the halls of the building. Anjie wondered what exactly had led her sister to taking up residence in the palace of Bright Moon and made a mental note to ask later. Anjie was well aware of the tendencies of Halfmoon authorities to require everything to be exactly on time. It was a habit that had plagued Lazuli well into their late teens when it seemed she was incapable of making it to school on time, and she had often been reprimanded for it. For this reason, she knew that there was little explanation for why the room that they had been led to was standing empty. Even the Bright moon guard looked a little confused as she mumbled to herself something about  _ ‘She was just here, I just saw her,’  _ and for a brief moment she worried that her sister had changed her mind about meeting her. This worry was cut short by an exclaimed “Oh!” from the doorway.

The entire Halfmoon party turned to see a short woman outfitted in what was quite possibly the most sparkly outfit that Anjie had ever seen on another person. It was not until her eyes drifted to the tiara atop her forehead that Anjie realized that this person must be the queen of Bright Moon that she had been told about by the council member. Said council member seemed to recognize the queen as she made her way over, gave a slight bow and began speaking. Anjie tried her best to listen to the conversation, but her mind had become overwhelmed with the thought that her sister had left and that she would never know anything more about her. It was not until the guard motioned for her to follow the now walking queen and council member that Anjie even realized the pair had stopped speaking and the queen had begun leading them somewhere. 

Briefly, the queen stopped in front of another door where a very tall woman and a shorter man with a bow strapped to his back were having an animated conversation. All Anjie could gather from the conversation was something about punching before the tall woman suddenly became much shorter and now stood about equal heights with the man in front of her. The queen walked to the pair and spoke quickly to them before motioning vaguely backwards towards their party and then shooing them inside despite their stunned faces at the sight of her. The queen returned to them and gave a polite smile before continuing to lead them. 

During the walk, she explained that there had been a minor emergency in Salineas, and Anjie tried to remember if she had ever heard of the place before they had been sent underground. She continued on to explain that her sister had been pulled away minutes before they arrived to help deal with the situation and was likely still handling the aftermath as the queen, who could apparently teleport, brought all the participating princesses back to Bright Moon. She led them to a room with grand doors which a guard opened to reveal a single figure leaning over a table, pushing holograms around in front of her and swishing her tail back and forth in irritation. The figure sighed and sat down as she dismissed the various holograms that cluttered the space around her head. Anjie observed as her ear twitched at the sound of the door closing before she swiveled in her chair to face them.

“Sparkles, you should have told me about this sooner. This whole thing could have been avoided if you just-”

The first thing she noticed was that she was outfitted in the dark reds and blacks that were typical of the Horde attire that Anjie remembered seeing. The next thing she noticed was the blinking communication device that was pinned to her top. The third thing she realized was that they were staring directly at each other, mismatched eye to mismatched eye.

The person, who Anjie had taken the liberty of making the educated guess was Sol, stopped her words dead in her throat while the queen approached her. They observed each other with cautious but curious scrutiny before the queen spoke. 

“Sorry, they arrived right as I was bringing everyone back, and I found them before coming up here.” For all her regality, the queen sounded somewhat nervous to say this to Sol as she removed the communication device from her sister’s shirt. Sol scarcely had the opportunity to open her mouth before the council member stepped forward and spoke again. The group went back and forth once more, but Anjie’s eyes remained transfixed on her sister. She didn’t speak even as Sol led them away from what she had called the ‘war room’ and back into the room that they had initially approached. 

The day would pass and Anjie would learn all that she possibly could in such a short amount of time and before she knew it, she had met nearly the entire princess alliance and She-Ra herself who she was still shocked to learn was dating her sister. The next day, as she was escorted back to her city, she looked on happily at the tracker pad that Sol had given her as she scrolled through the pictures she had been able to take for their family back in New Halfmoon.

She flipped to a picture of Sol sitting on the ground in the room they had slept in during her night spent in Bright Moon. Adora was asleep and draped across her lap, and she was looking down on her with the most reverent look she had ever seen on another person besides those who were truly in love. Anjie sighed happily and turned the screen off as she clutched it to her chest. 

They would be alright. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this is the end - for real this time !!  
> Feel free to leave feedback or any comments, I always enjoy reading them !!  
> if you feel like looking at my fic ramblings and occasional art pieces my twitter is @dip_doppp 
> 
> I don't currently have any plans for anything new to write but I have a couple ideas that I might work on intermittently - feel free to leave suggestions either on here or on twitter !!


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